UPDATED: June 5, 2013
*VA has restored the link and public access to the 2012 Suicide Data Report.
VANISHED: VA Pulls 2012 Suicide Data Report Off its Website
by The Military Suicide Report
June 2, 2013
For reasons unknown, the Veterans Administration today suddenly pulled its latest report on veterans suicide data from its website.
The VA posted the following message at the URL link where the report was previously available to the public.
The message now in place of the report reads:
“VA Website Maintenance. Our Apologies, the site you are attempting to reach is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance and will be back online as soon as possible.”
Janet Kemp, RN Ph.D. and Robert Bossarte, Ph.D., authors of the report, stated that at least 22 veterans per day were dying from suicide.
The report is titled “Suicide Data Report 2012,” and was released by VA’s public relations department on Feb. 1, 2013.
Some experts criticized the report as incomplete, citing its failure to include suicide statistics from the two states with the highest populations of veterans, California and Texas.
The elimination of these states suggests suicide numbers among veterans may be far greater than the 22 per day claimed in the 2012 report. VA cited veterans suicide data from only 21 of the 50 states in the report. VA spokespersons said the states missing from the report did not have suicide data on veteran populations available when the report was prepared.
There are an estimated 23.5 million living veterans in America. The majority of American veterans are aged above 50 years old, representing those who fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. There are an estimated 2.5 million veterans who have fought in the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Near 100,000 American veterans have taken their own lives through suicide since Sept. 11, 2001, according to statistical data available from both the VA and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read recent news coverage of the Suicide Data Report 2012:
USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/01/veterans-suicide/1883329/
Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/media-misleads-military-veterans-suicide-study-181500953.html
Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/va_report_22_veterans_commit_suicide_each_day_2/
Read the full report at the New York Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/02/us/suicide-statistics-from-the-department-of-defense.html?_r=0
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: 22 a day veteran suicides, Janet Kemp, PTSD, Robert Bossarte, Suicide prevention, VA 2012 Suicide Data Report, VA suicide report, Veterans, Veterans Affairs, Veterans Suicide | 4 Comments »
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