Why is the number (22 a day) of veteran suicides so high?

The statistic that there are 22 veteran suicides each day — or, more than 8,000 when multiplied by the number of days in a year — is a widely cited figure ... read more

This figure — 22 veterans a day commit suicide — while widely touted by politicians, media outlets, veterans service organizations, among others, comes from the VA’s 2012 Suicide Data Report, which analyzed the death certificates of 21 states from 1999 to 2011, and often is not provided within the right context. read more

But more than 34,000 suicides from the 21 states that reported data to the VA were discarded because the state death records failed to indicate whether the deceased was a veteran. That's 23% of the recorded suicides from those states. So the study looked at 77% of the recorded suicides in 40% of the U.S. population. read more

Roughly 20 veterans a day commit suicide nationwide, according to new data from the Department of Veterans Affairs — a figure that dispels the often quoted, but problematic, "22 a day" estimate yet solidifies the for the problem and replaces it with an equally disturbing mental health crisis the number implied. read more