US Military Suicides (Media Post Example)

On January 14, several news stories reported that the number of suicides committed by US military personnel hit a record high in 2012 and exceeds combat deaths in Afghanistan. Here are some of the stats:

• RT.com: In 2012 there were 349 potential suicides (177 active-duty and 126 non-active-duty), up from 301 confirmed suicides (165 active-duty and 118 non-active-duty) in 2011. In 2012 there were 295 American fatalities in Afghanistan combat. The suicide rate in the US military is 24 per 100,000 soldiers. The suicide rate for US men aged 17-60 was 25 per 100,000 in 2010.
• CBS News via AP: There were "349 suicides among active-duty troops last year were up from 301 the year before." There were 310 in 2009. Civilian rate in 2010 was 25 per 100,000 but military rate in 2012 was 17.5 per 100,000.
• San Antonio Express-News produced a particularly worrisome bar graph: 

These are specific descriptive statistics because they give a summary of what has happened among a specific group of people in a specific time period. The statistics that I am posting do not make any attempt at generalizing or predicting the future or possible causes (although you can find such things in the news articles). These statistics have similar problems to the data that we have discussed in class, in that the numbers themselves are inconsistent and the statistics are made to look like they support the implications made in the articles. It appears that the reporters and people quoted in the articles want to make a claim of high suicide numbers and are therefore highlighting statistics that support the claim while ignoring statistics that indicate suicide rates in the military are the same or lower than other rates.

My first concern about these numbers is that they are different for different news sources. I looked for the source of the data at www.army.mil but could not find it. This makes it difficult to compare numbers because it is not clear that they are counting the same thing. For example, what does "potential" number of suicides mean? Does that mean that the real (confirmed) number could be smaller? Or could it be bigger?

My second concern is that the headlines and tone of these news stories imply that suicide rates among soldiers are much higher than they should be. We can all agree that any suicide rate above 0 is more than it should be. Yet, do these statistics show that we should be particularly concerned about suicide among the military? The rates of suicide compared to civilians actually makes it look like soldiers (active and non-active) are not more likely to commit suicide than the average man aged 17-60.

My third concern is about the headlining statement that the number of military suicides in 2012 exceeded the number of US combat deaths in Afghanistan. This statement is true, but it is misleading. It is misleading because they are comparing two specific statistics about two groups of people where one group is much larger than the other. Of course, these specific statistics in raw counts do not generalize to the notion that a soldier is more likely to die by his/her own hands than in combat. In order to make that comparison, we have to look at the rate of death, rather than just the raw count. From the sources given above, we have the rate of suicide as either 24 or 17.5 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. To  get the combat fatality rate, I need the number of US soldiers serving in Afghanistan in 2012. ABC News reports 68,000 troops in Afghanistan after the departure of the 33,000 surge troops, so there were between 68,000 and 101,000 troops throughout the year. I am using with the higher number because it gives the lowest rate. That gives 295/101,000 * 100,000 = 292 per 100,000 soldiers killed in Afghanistan in 2012. Clearly this is much higher than the rate of suicide among soldiers.


Sources (all accessed 1/24/2013):

• "US Military suicides continue to climb, reaching record in 2012," RT.com, January 14, 2013.
• "U.S. military suicides exceed combat deaths," CBS News, cbsnews.com, January 14, 2013.
• "Military suicides set new record," San Antonio Express-News, mysanantonio.com, January 14, 2013.
• "Last of 33,000 Surge Troops Leave Afghanistan," ABC News, abcnews.com, September 20, 2012.