Military suicides up 16 percent in 2020, but officials don’t blame pandemic
By Meghann Myers
Thursday, Sep 30
While the number of suicides increased by 16 percent from 2019 to 2020, the overall rate increased only slightly. (MC3 Alana Langdon/Navy)
Last fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to rage, early reports showed that the stress of shelter-in-place orders and travel bans might have been contributing to troop suicides. But whatever was responsible for that spike, it didn’t last, and the latest Defense Department suicide report shows no statistically significant increases in 2020.
There were 580 deaths by suicide among service members last year, according to the report released Thursday, up from 498 in 2019. While that represents a 16 percent increase in the number of suicides, it represents an increased suicide rate of about 2 per-100,000, which DoD does not consider significant for the purposes of tracking trends.
“Like you, we are very concerned about the suicide rates in our military, and we must do all we can to prevent these tragedies,” Maj. Gen. Clement Coward, acting executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency, told reporters on Thursday.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/09/30/military-suicides-up-15-percent-in-2020-but-officials-dont-blame-pandemic/
