US Army suicides up 80% since start of Iraq War
Soldiers wave to colleagues as a section of the last American military convoy to depart Iraq from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division arrives after crossing over the border into Kuwait on December 18, 2011, in Camp Virginia, Kuwait.
Suicide among young Army personnel rose 80% between 2004 and 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the last two years that had data available for the study — 2007 and 2008 — 255 soldiers took their lives. The authors of the study, the Army Public Health Command (APHC), estimated that 25% to 50% of the suicides were directly related to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Suicide rates among active US Army personnel were decreasing between 1977 and 2003.
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The number of suicides is "unprecedented in over 30 years of US Army records," according to the APHC, and the increase in deaths parallels the increasing rates of depression and other mental health conditions among soldiers, reported The Daily Mail.
The study's authors called the high presence of mental health disorders among enlisted personnel "sentinels for suicide risk," according to The Baltimore Sun. From 2000 to 2008, adjustment disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and substance-abuse disorders have soared among Army personnel. During the same time, the number of visits for mental health disorders in the Army nearly doubled.
"This study does not show that US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan cause suicide," said Dr. Michelle Chervak, one of the study's authors, a senior epidemiologist at the APHC, to ABC News. "This study does suggest that an Army engaged in prolonged combat operations is a population under stress, and that mental health conditions and suicide can be expected to increase under these circumstances."