We have an epidemic of military service-member suicides. 22 a day is not OK! Show you care about our veterans.
865-336-2624
Vet to Vet Tennessee
Each One, Reach One, Teach One
Bill Whittle points out that Robin Williams wasn’t the only suicide on August 11
Since veterans are about 15% of the adult population, and there are about 40,000 adult suicides per year, the expected annual number of veterans suicides would be about 6000.
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If the 22 per day figure is correct, that accounts for about 8000 per year, which might imply the rate for vets is 1/3 higher than for all adults – BUT that would be misleading.
80% of suicides are male. 87% of living veterans are male. So if you do math, you can see that not only isn’t 22 veteran suicides a day a crisis, it’s not at all unexpected.
Richard, Sorry for the late reply. We are in the process of preparing for our Veterans Treatment Court Public Announcement on September 29, 2014 at the Community Action Center at 10:30 a. m. This is another program we initiated to help reduce the suicide rate which is totally unacceptable.
According the the Department of Veterans Affairs Profile of Veterans: 2011 Data from the American Community Survey veterans are less than 10% of the total U.S. population. http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/docs/SpecialReports/Profile_of_Veterans_2011.pdf
Suicide among Veterans: As Reported on Death Certificates
Of the 147,763 suicides reported in 21 states, 27,062 (18.3%) were identified as having history of U.S. military service on death certificates. However, Veteran status was unknown or not reported for more than 23% of all suicides during the project period. Without linking to VA or DoD resources to validate history of U.S. military service, it is necessary to remove those without information on history of military service from estimates of Veteran status among suicide decedents.
Among cases where history of U.S. military service was reported, Veterans comprised approximately 22.2% of all suicides reported during the project period. If this prevalence estimate is assumed to be constant across all U.S. states, an estimated 22 Veterans will have died from suicide
each day in the calendar year 2010.” Source VA Suicide Data Report, link: http://www.va.gov/opa/docs/suicide-data-report-2012-final.pdf
Please join us in our mission to help our brothers. Our Motto is “Each One, Reach One, Teach One”. There is strength in numbers, and your endorsement helps accomplish this.
Knoxville Regional Veterans Mental Health Council