New suicide prevention strategy makes debut
By Joe Gould - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 10, 2012 15:12:28 EDT
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As an updated National Strategy on Suicide Prevention was announced Monday, Army Secretary John McHugh said the service’s suicide problem is linked to “broader societal issues.”
“At this time, right now, we’re losing more of our soldiers to suicide than we are to combat. We feel somehow we left those fallen comrades behind,” McHugh said, referencing a tenet of the Army’s Warrior Ethos. McHugh was speaking at a press conference at the National Press Club.
READ THE REPORT
2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (PDF)
The Army experienced a record 38 suicides in July, the highest monthly total since the service began releasing monthly figures in 2009. According to an Army report, 26 active-duty soldiers and 12 Army National Guard or Army Reserve members were suspected of or confirmed to have died by suicide.
Though it is easy to assume that the spate of soldier suicides is linked to the stresses of war and repeated deployments, McHugh said, “Like so many of suicide’s contradictions, the reality is a far more complicated matter.”
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McHugh noted that in 2010, 54 percent of service members who committed suicide and 59 percent of those who attempted suicide had never deployed. Eighty-nine percent never saw combat.
“What that tells us very clearly, as [Defense] Secretary [Leon] Panetta recently noted, is that we are dealing with broader societal issues: substance abuse, financial distress, relationship problems,” McHugh said. “The risks for suicide also reflect the problems in broader society,” McHugh said.
McHugh spoke alongside Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, who released the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.
The strategy has been updated for the first time since 2001. Its priorities include fostering positive public dialogue, countering shame, prejudice, and silence, and building public support for suicide prevention.
The strategy calls attention to the increasing numbers of suicides among troops and veterans, noting an increase in suicide rates in the military in 2006 was driven by the Army and Marine Corps.
In 2010, junior enlisted troops who were white and under 25 years old were at increased risk for suicide relative to those groups in the general population.
The report references efforts at the Defense Department and in the individual services, including the Army’s Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, to prepare designated “gatekeepers” to recognize suicide risk and intervene.
McHugh, who co-chairs the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, lauded a new Facebook service that will allow users to report suicidal comments that their friends make online. The website sends the person an email with the number of the national suicide prevention hotline and allows the person to chat online with a counselor.
“Nothing is more critical to our success than communication,” McHugh said.
