Suicide, which kills over 45,000 Americans each year, is a leading cause of death in the United States. But it doesn’t affect all people equally. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that the suicide rate for veterans is 1.5 times the rate for non-veteran adults. Although suicide has no single cause and is influenced by a range of risk factors – financial stress, a divorce or breakup, depression, anxiety, addiction, or pain – America’s veterans have been hit exceptionally hard by suicide. And veteran suicide rates are complicated and burdened by both stigma and treatment hurdles.
This summer the VA released the 2022 National Veterans Suicide Prevention Annual Report, which revealed a decrease in veteran suicide from 2019 to 2020. While this is encouraging news, the accuracy of VA’s data has been called into question and, as long as a single life is lost, we have more work to do. A national strategy that moves us closer to ‘no lives lost to suicide’ begins with making sure veterans have direct access to the care they need when they need it. A grateful nation owes them nothing less.
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