USA — Army Released March Suicide Data

The Army released sui­cide data today for the month of March. Among active-duty sol­diers, there were sev­en poten­tial sui­cides: none have been con­firmed as sui­cide, and sev­en remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For Feb­ru­ary 2011, the Army report­ed eight poten­tial sui­cides among active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, one case has been con­firmed as sui­cide, and sev­en cas­es remain under inves­ti­ga­tion.

Dur­ing March 2011, among reserve com­po­nent sol­diers who were not on active duty, there were eight poten­tial sui­cides: none have been con­firmed as sui­cide, and eight remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For Feb­ru­ary 2011, among that same group, there were eight total poten­tial sui­cides. Of those, three were con­firmed as sui­cides and five are pend­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the man­ner of death. 

“Army efforts to improve sui­cide pre­ven­tion aware­ness, edu­ca­tion and sup­port that is read­i­ly avail­able to all mem­bers of the Army fam­i­ly con­tin­ue to be of para­mount impor­tance to senior Army lead­er­ship. Informed and engaged lead­ers at every lev­el help fos­ter a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty in sol­diers, Army civil­ians and fam­i­ly mem­bers.” said Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy direc­tor, Army Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion Task Force. “Lead­ers will reduce the stig­ma asso­ci­at­ed with seek­ing help by pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive behav­ioral health oppor­tu­ni­ties that include phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, social, fam­i­ly and spir­i­tu­al well-being,” Philbrick said. 

Sol­diers and fam­i­lies in need of cri­sis assis­tance can con­tact the Nation­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line. Trained con­sul­tants are avail­able 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week, 365 days a year and can be con­tact­ed by dial­ing 1–800-273-TALK (8255) or by vis­it­ing their web­site at http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org .

The Army’s com­pre­hen­sive list of Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram infor­ma­tion is locat­ed at http://www.preventsuicide.army.mil .

Army lead­ers can access cur­rent health pro­mo­tion guid­ance in new­ly revised Army Reg­u­la­tion 600–63 (Health Pro­mo­tion) at: http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r600_63.pdf and Army Pam­phlet 600–24 (Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion and Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion) at http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/p600_24.pdf .

Sui­cide pre­ven­tion train­ing resources for Army fam­i­lies can be accessed at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/training_sub.asp?sub_cat=20 (requires Army Knowl­edge Online access to down­load materials). 

Infor­ma­tion about Mil­i­tary One­Source is locat­ed at http://www.militaryonesource.com or by dial­ing the toll-free num­ber 1–800-342–9647for those resid­ing in the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States. Over­seas per­son­nel should refer to the Mil­i­tary One­Source web­site for dial­ing instruc­tions for their spe­cif­ic location. 

Infor­ma­tion about the Army’s Com­pre­hen­sive Sol­dier Fit­ness Pro­gram is locat­ed at http://www.army.mil/csf/ .

The Defense Cen­ter for Excel­lence for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury (DCoE) Out­reach Cen­ter can be con­tact­ed at 1–866-966‑1020, via elec­tron­ic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org and at http://www.dcoe.health.mil .

The web­site for the Amer­i­can Foun­da­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion is http://www.afsp.org/ and the Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Resource Coun­cil site is found at http://www.sprc.org/index.asp .

The web­site for the Tragedy Assis­tance Pro­gram for Sur­vivors is http://www.TAPS.org and they can be reached at 1–800-959-TAPS (8277).

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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