USA — Army Releases October Suicide Data

The Army released sui­cide data today for the month of Octo­ber. Among active-duty sol­diers, there were nine poten­tial sui­cides: two have been con­firmed as sui­cides, and sev­en remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For Sep­tem­ber, the Army report­ed 19 poten­tial sui­cides among active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, six have been con­firmed as sui­cides, and 13 remain under inves­ti­ga­tion.

Dur­ing Octo­ber 2010, among reserve com­po­nent sol­diers who were not on active duty, there were 16 poten­tial sui­cides. For Sep­tem­ber, among that same group, there were 10 total sui­cides. Of those, four were con­firmed as sui­cides and six are pend­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the man­ner of death. 

“Army efforts con­tin­ue to focus on indi­vid­u­als who engage in high-risk behav­ior. Risk with­in the force can­not be mit­i­gat­ed by sui­cide pre­ven­tion pro­grams alone.

Army lead­ers at every lev­el have an enor­mous influ­ence on help­ing to elim­i­nate the stig­ma sur­round­ing seek­ing behav­ioral health assis­tance, reduc­ing high-risk behav­ior and reduc­ing our unac­cept­able casu­al­ty rates,” said Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy direc­tor of the Army Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion Task Force. 

“Through the coor­di­nat­ed efforts of lead­ers, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, chap­lains, fam­i­lies and oth­er mem­bers of the Army team, we can pro­vide holis­tic care for those who seek help, while act­ing pos­i­tive­ly to reduce the high-risk pop­u­la­tion,” 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, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and can be con­tact­ed by dial­ing 1–800-273-TALK (8255) or by vis­it­ing their web­site athttp://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

Sol­diers and fam­i­lies in need of cri­sis assis­tance can con­tact Mil­i­tary One­Source or the Defense Cen­ter of Excel­lence (DCoE) for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury Out­reach Cen­ter. Trained con­sul­tants are avail­able from both orga­ni­za­tions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. 

The Mil­i­tary One­Source toll-free num­ber for those resid­ing in the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed. States. is 1–800-342‑9647; their Web site address is http://www.militaryonesource.com. Over­seas per­son­nel should refer to the Mil­i­tary One­Source Web site for dial­ing instruc­tions for their spe­cif­ic location. 

The Army’s com­pre­hen­sive list of Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram infor­ma­tion is locat­ed at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/default.asp.

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

Amer­i­can Foun­da­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion: http://www.afsp.org/.

Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Resource Coun­cil: http://www.sprc.org/index.asp.

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

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter