USA — Army Releases September Suicide Data

Amer­i­can Forces Press Ser­vice WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2010 — The Army released sui­cide data today for the month of Sep­tem­ber, accord­ing to a DOD release.
Among active-duty sol­diers, there were 18 poten­tial sui­cides in Sep­tem­ber. None have been con­firmed as sui­cides and all 18 cas­es remain under inves­ti­ga­tion.

For August, the Army report­ed 13 poten­tial sui­cides among active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, sev­en have been con­firmed as sui­cides, and six remain under investigation. 

Dur­ing Sep­tem­ber, among reserve com­po­nent sol­diers who were not on active duty, there were eight poten­tial sui­cides. For August, among that same group, there were 11 total sui­cides. Of those, four were con­firmed as sui­cides and sev­en are pend­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the man­ner of death. 

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarel­li signed the char­ter for the Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion and Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Coun­cil and Task Force on Sept. 29, Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy direc­tor of the Army Health Promotion’s Risk Reduc­tion Task Force, said. The two groups ana­lyze and imple­ment the more than 350 rec­om­mend­ed changes to Army pol­i­cy, pro­ce­dures and process­es pro­posed in the Army Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion and Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Report released in July, he said. 

The over­ar­ch­ing goal, Philbrick said, is “to reduce instances of high-risk behav­ior among our sol­diers, civil­ians and fam­i­ly mem­bers, who con­tin­ue to serve under a high oper­a­tional tem­po, while reduc­ing the stig­ma asso­ci­at­ed with help-seek­ing behavior. 

“These aspects,” he con­tin­ued, “are key com­po­nents of the Army’s Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion Cam­paign Plan.” 

The Army con­tin­ues its focus on sui­cide pre­ven­tion efforts, begin­ning with the for­ma­tion of the Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Task Force in ear­ly 2009, the part­ner­ship with the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health to con­duct a five-year study of Army sui­cides, and the July release of the Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion and Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Report. Sol­diers and fam­i­lies in need of cri­sis assis­tance can con­tact Mil­i­tary One­Source or the Defense Cen­ter of Excel­lence for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury Out­reach Cen­ter. Trained con­sul­tants are avail­able 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week, 365 days a year 

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

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