DO THE MATH

Suicides, the U.S. military and Time magazine

Death is always traumatic for those left behind, and especially so if it was at one’s own hand.  The recent Cover story by Time magazine, July 23, 2012, addresses the fact U.S. military suicide rates  have been on the rise and, to quote the cover text, “Every day, one U.S. soldier commits suicide.” 

The core mathematics and statistics, presented on pages 26-27 of the article, however, are skewed and the story's conclusions/implications logically flawed in the extreme.

The statement that one soldier dies every day in 2012, i.e. 365 or so this year, is based on a projection as illustrated by the graph on page 26.  

The actual collected data ends either with 2011 or as of June 10, 2012 (stated below the chart with an *) and the articles author or team at Time extrapolate for all of 2012 or for the next 6 months (if June 10 is used).  That’s ½ a year ‘guessing’ at minimum!!

Worse, the graph line breakdowns by army, air force, navy and marine show major spikes UP and major DOWNTURNS over the years (though rarely for the army portion) yet  Time’s dotted projection line assumes all 4 sections of the U.S. military will all only go UPWARD for the rest of the year -- and at very sharp rates compared to previous upward spikes for air force, navy and marines.

The Dot charts are also informative for what they show and what is left out.

Only 17% of suicides were in combat zones: Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere, with 83% done on U.S. home soil;  55% had been in combat zones recently or in the past and seen people or comrades killed in war -- which means a whopping 45% had never seen or been near combat or danger. Finally, of the 41% that received health issue support, over half (26%) was for drug and alcohol abuse, 1 in 6 for depression (7%), and only 1 in 8 for PTSD (war trauma) (5%) and 1 in 14 for brain injury (3%).

41% had already been identified as having some mental health issue and received some treatment, and 30% had had a major breakdown in an “intimate relationship the prior month.”

CONCLUSIONS

a.      The projected 2012 suicide rate of one-per-day is highly speculative in mid-year, and assumes a universal and sharp upward trend that is inconsistent with the up and down patterns of the past.

b.      Drug and alcohol problems are not unique to the armed forces nor are individuals with a pre-existing history of individual depression and family suicide – as mentioned in one of the two soldier deaths chronicled in the issue. Major romantic breakdowns are also hard for the army or any employer to control.

c.      What the actual data– the percentages split over pages 26-27 -- shows is that suicides in the U.S. forces is not a general issue but a selective one, affecting almost exclusively white males who are not officers (80% to 95%),  with almost half of these (47%) young men under age 25.