Noteboom The Law Firm

Army Gives Funding For Suicide Prevention Programs

November 1, 2010 - Suicides among soldiers and veterans continue to make headlines, and the army is hoping to put an end to that. The recent trend of rising suicides among these groups is something that must be addressed. The Army's Military Operation Medicine Research Program is giving $8.5 million to both the Denver Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital and the Florida State University to subsidize research. The research will last 3 years and will seek to understand why soldiers and veterans commit suicide.  

It is believed this project will produce landmark results because of the strength of the research departments receiving the funding. The army hopes to be able to use the results of this research as a tool to be able to promptly identify soldiers they believe to be at risk for suicide. If this can be accomplished, the army can then tailor their prevention and treatment programs to be much more successful. 

If this research can give new information into the mindset of those soldiers and veterans considering suicide, it may also be able to hypothesize how the military culture is tied into that thought process. Ultimately, the research will give the military more effective and efficient tools into recognizing, preventing, and treating these suicidal soldiers and veterans.  

The military lost over 1,000 soldiers between 2005 and 2009 to suicide. Hopefully this research will provide an effective tool to combat this war the military is facing at home.