Deployment Factors Are Not Related to Rise in Military Suicides, Study Finds

[Purveyor]

In the largest study of its kind, military medical researchers have concluded that deployments to war zones and exposure to combat were not major factors behind a significant increase in suicides among military personnel from 2001 to 2008, according to a paper published on Tuesday.

The study, published online by The Journal of the American Medical Association, corroborates what many military medical experts have been saying for years: that the forces underlying the spike in military suicides are similar to those in the civilian world. They include mental illness, substance abuse, and financial and relationship problems.

“The findings from this study are not consistent with the assumption that specific deployment-related characteristics, such as length of deployment, number of deployments, or combat experiences, are directly associated with increased suicide risk,” the authors, based at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, wrote. “Instead, the risk factors associated with suicide in this military population are consistent with civilian populations, including male sex and mental disorders.”

But even as it points to nondeployment factors as paramount, the study underscores the complex interplay of war and the mental health of troops, even those who never left the United States. It suggests that the stresses of 12 years of war may have worn on all service members, creating work and travel demands far outstripping those borne by peacetime troops.

“Perhaps it’s not being deployed so much as being in a war during a high-stress time period,” Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone, the principal investigator for the Millennium Cohort Study, which provided much of the raw data for the study, said in an interview.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/us/deployment-factors-found-not-related-to-military-suicide-spike.html?_r=0#h[]

[HiPointDem]

1. i find that hard to believe.

[Purveyor]

3. Yep. I declare a heavy load of bullshit to this 'report' also. eom

[catrose]

2. And maybe

they might have less mental illness & substance abuse and fewer financial & relationship issues if they weren't involved in a never-ending war.

But that's probably crazy talk. </sarcasm>

[Igel]

4. Of course.

Being in the military during war time increases the workload.

But whatever the stresses is, they have no correlation with being deployed. That means the cafeteria workers, the paper pushers, the bean counters, the trainers, all feel the same kind of stress as the GI sent to Afghanistan for several tours of duty.

*That* makes the entire thing more difficult to accept. It makes it harder to argue that the *war* is the cause of the suicides, and therefore Bush II (or Obama, if you're of a mind to blame him). Instead it's just being in an active military that causes you to move around more at a time of economic distress.

Then again, don't a lot of people argue that the primary reason for a lot of people to join the military is economic hardship outside the military? Hmmm....

[elehhhhna]

5. I knew who conducted that study before I clicked the thread

it would be funny if it weren't so tragic

I don't trust them here's why:

The experiments include: the deliberate infection of people with deadly or debilitating diseases, exposure of people to biological and chemical weapons, human radiation experiments, injection of people with toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation/torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others. \treatment".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

[Autumn]

6. Bullshit.