While I mentioned earlier today that Marine suicides are down, the Army Times is reporting that the news isn't so good for young female veterans, who according to a disturbing new study are committing suicide at a rate three times higher than women their same age who never served.
The study - 'Self-Inflicted Deaths Among Women with U.S. Military Service: A Hidden Epidemic?' - is the first general-population analysis of suicide risk among female veterans, according to the authors. It looked at data on 5,948 female suicides committed from 2004 to 2007 in the 16 states that participate in the National Violent Death Reporting System.
"These findings suggest a hidden epidemic of suicide among young women with military service," the researchers wrote in their study. Dr. Mark Kaplan of Portland State University's School of Community Health, a co-author of the study, told the Army Times:
To reach the Veterans Suicide Prevention Hotline, call 800-273-TALK (8255), and press "1". Dr. Bentson McFarland, a professor of psychiatry in the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and another of the study's authors, told Exam Health:
