Veterans More Likely To Commit Suicide

June 12, 2007

Male U.S. veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide as men with no military service and are more likely to kill themselves with a gun than others who commit suicide, researchers said yesterday.

The study tracked 320,890 American men, about a third of whom served in the U.S. military between 1917 and 1994. The rest had no military background.

Those who had served in the military committed suicide at a rate 2.13 times that of the other men, the study found. The veterans did not have a higher risk of dying from disease, accidental causes or murder.

The men with military background were also 58 percent more likely to have used a firearm to kill themselves than non-veterans who committed suicide. Mark Kaplan, who led the research, said studies show that veterans are more likely to own guns than the general population.

The research, led by Kaplan, of Portland State University in Oregon, was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. ~ © 2007 The Washington Post Company

SOURCE:

Washington Post