Research led by Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Purdue University
As the nation celebrates our 16 million living veterans, it is also important to know that the chance these heroes will end their own lives prematurely is still higher than among civilians.
Among veterans with PTSD, suicide is the fourth most common cause of death. Among veterans younger than 35, it's second.
Over the past decade, suicide rates have also risen among members of the military. For most years since 2017, rates for active-duty service members have been above those of civilians. The same is true for National Guard service members since 2015 and for veterans for the past decade.
I'm a researcher who studies risk and resilience in military and veteran families. I can tell you that the single most common stressor for those who attempt or complete suicide is a serious relationship difficulty with an intimate partner or someone else within the past year. And more than 40% of service members who attempted or completed suicide had been seen within that year by a medical, mental health or social service professional. About one-third communicated a potential for self-harm.