What Is the "Deadly Gap" in Veteran Suicide Prevention? |
Suicide Risk Factors and Signs
Take our Depression Test
Find a therapist near me
Veteran suicide rates are higher after their first year of transitioning from military service.
The Three-Step Theory of Suicide can guide suicide prevention efforts.
Transitioning veterans face disruptions in their career, healthcare, and identity.
For loved ones, supporting veterans and understanding military culture are crucial.
You may have read that approximately 18 U.S. military veterans die by suicide each day. You may have heard about the Veteran’s Crisis Line, which offers crisis support 24 hours a day, for veterans and their loved ones. What you have probably heard less about is how you can help a veteran before circumstances escalate to a crisis.
Despite advancements in suicide prevention, veterans continue to have a 1.5-times increased risk of suicide compared to non-veterans (Ruiz et al., 2023). A key challenge for suicide prevention is that it requires intervention at many levels. There is no miracle cure or simple lever to pull that will make everything better. Efforts must occur at the individual, familial, cultural, healthcare, and workplace levels: It takes a village to save a life.
Does this sound like an impossible task? Maybe. But it is a necessary, worthwhile mission. Each veteran who dies by suicide is a tragedy. So, how can we fulfill this mission? How can we meaningfully reduce suicide across a broad, diverse population like veterans?
Address the Deadly Gap for Transitioning Service Members
In the last decade, researchers have discovered a strategic period for intervention: the “deadly gap" (Sokol et al., 2021). This refers to the first year after veterans transition out of military service, when they experience a spike in suicide risk. In a study of 3.8 million service members between 2001-2011, the risk of suicide almost tripled in the first year of separation from the military (Shen et al., 2016). Unfortunately, we continue to observe similar trends today.
According to the most recent data from the Department of Veteran Affairs, the suicide rate for transitioning veterans has decreased somewhat but remains high. In 2023, the suicide rate for the general population was 14.2 per 100,000, meaning that about 14 people in this demographic died by suicide for every 100,000 people. Among all veterans, the suicide rate was 35.2 per 100,000. If we zoom in on transitioning veterans, the rate was 41.2 per 100,000. If we zoom in even further, on veterans who recently separated with a substance use disorder, the rate is 152.6 per 100,000.
This raises the question: Why does the deadly gap exist?
Background of a Leading Theory for Suicide
The Three-Step Theory of Suicide can........