Comparing the Army's suicide rate to the general U.S. population : identifying suitable characteristics, data sources, and analytic approaches / Beth Ann Griffin, Geoffrey E. Grimm, Rosanna Smart, Rajeev Ramchand, Lisa H. Jaycox, Lynsay Ayer, Erin N. Leidy, Steven Davenport, Terry L. Schell, Andrew R. Morral.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Griffin, Beth Ann, author.

Grimm, Geoffrey E., author.

Smart, Rosanna, author.

Ramchand, Rajeev, author.

Jaycox, Lisa, author.

Ayer, Lynsay, author.

Leidy, Erin N., author.

Davenport, Steven, author.

Schell, Terry L., 1967- author.

Morral, Andrew R., author.

Contributor:

Arroyo Center.

Rand Corporation.

United States. Army.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Army.

United States.

Suicide--United States.

Suicide.

Soldiers--Suicidal behavior--United States.

Soldiers.

Soldiers--Suicidal behavior.

Physical Description:

xix, 106 pages : illustrations, map ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, CA : RAND, [2020]

Summary:

Over the past 15 years, the suicide rate among members of the U.S. armed forces has doubled, with the greatest increase observed among soldiers in the Army. This increasing rate is paralleled by a smaller increase in the general U.S. population, observed across both genders, in virtually every age group and in nearly every state. An empirical question exists: What is the extent or degree to which the suicide trend in the Army is unique to that service, relative to what is observed in the general U.S. population? The Army has typically attempted to address this question by standardizing the general population to look like the Army on demographic characteristics. However, given the rise in suicide rates over the past decade, the Army wanted to better understand whether standardization based solely on age and gender is enough. Expanding the characteristics on which the general population is standardized to match the Army could be useful to gain a better understanding of the suicide trends in the Army. However, such a change also brings with it some challenges, including the lack of readily available data in the general U.S. population. In addition, even an expanded set of characteristics still results in having a large number of unmeasured factors that cannot be included in this type of analysis. In this report, the authors explore how accounting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, time, marital status, and educational attainment affects suicide rate differences between soldiers and a comparable subset of the general U.S. population.

Contents:

Introduction

Suicide Risk and Protective Factors

Army Risk Factors

General Population Risk Factors

Matching the Army to a Comparable Subset of General U.S. Population

Conclusions

Appendix A: Industry and Occupation Coding in the NVDRS

Appendix B: Suicide Modeling Methods

Appendix C: Candidate Data Sources on General Population Suicides

Appendix D: Data Harmonization

Appendix E: Analyses for Location and Deployment History

Appendix F: 2015 Army Analysis.

Notes:

"RAND Arroyo Center."

"Prepared for the United States Army."

"This research was conducted within RAND Arroyo Center's Personnel, Training, and Health Program"--Preface (page iii).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 95-106).

ISBN:

9781977403599

197740359X

OCLC:

1147928915