The annual suicide rate among American veterans may be more than double what federal officials estimate because of the undercounting of drug-overdose deaths and other recording errors, according to a new study.
In collaboration with the University of Alabama and Duke University, America’s Warrior Partnership examined eight states’ census mortality statistics from 2014 to 2018. The researchers discovered thousands of suspected or confirmed suicides that weren’t accounted for by government data. If these figures are extrapolated, it would increase the estimate of veterans who kill themselves each day from 17, the official number provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), to 44.
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