Suicide surges among soldiers not inherently tied to wars, study finds

LTC Eugene Chu
..."Suicide rates among active duty soldiers do not appear to be significantly impacted during times of war, a recent study found.

Despite an uptick in suicides amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, historically times of combat are not solely accountable for surges in self-harm among troops, according to the study slated for the May issue of Psychiatry Research.

In a review of data between 1900 and 2020, researchers analyzed historical trends of suicide rates between active duty soldiers and civilians, aiming to paint a more contextualized picture of how combat trauma affects both populations. They found the rates largely paralleled one another.

“[G]iven the apparent convergence of U.S. Army and similarly aged U.S. civilian male annual suicide rates, larger more universal factors than combat may be similarly affecting both populations,” the authors suggest.

The study builds on an extensive 2019 investigation from the authors on Army suicide between the years 1819 and 2017. The results showed an increase in suicide rates among soldiers during the Vietnam War and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but decreases during the American Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and the Korean War."...

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