#Middlebury #Veterans
The newly released National Suicide Data Report shows the number of veterans who commit suicide is unchanged. The report covers the years 2005 to 2015, which is a big concern. That time period ended three years ago. What is going on right now?
The report is full of data manipulated in various ways, with subpopulations, unadjusted rates, age-adjusted rates, by race, by branch of service, by era … and more. It’s loaded with charts with rates versus percentage versus real numbers.
The number of veterans has gone down, by 15.2 percent. The percentage of veterans using Department of Veterans Affairs health care has gone up. Suicides went down among the group using VA health care. The biggest rate of increase category is female veterans who did not use VA health care services – but males in VA health care had the largest actual number.
The next biggest category is all veterans, male and female, who did and didn’t use VA health care services. The smallest category is for female veterans who used those services. In the “unadjusted” chart breaking down age, there is not a single group with smaller numbers in 2015 than there were in 2005.
Unless you were a statistics major in college, these charts and graphs will boggle the mind, with nothing making sense. The only graph that spells out the truth in an understandable way is the one showing that the number of veteran suicides from 2008 to 2015 has remained steady at 20 per day.
If you want a more comprehensive understanding, wade through the 48-page VA National Suicide Data Report 2005-2015.
(c) 2018 King Features Synd. Inc.
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