11
army colonel and now the director of programs and research at
the Service Women’s Action Network, a nonprofit organization
that advocates for active duty and veteran servicewomen. “Until
we change our culture to say, hey, it’s actually strong to be able
to recognize your own needs, that that’s not a weakness, to be
introspective, then we’re going to continue to see this problem.”
9
An Occupational Hazard
The military is not the only profession with a high suicide risk. A No-
vember 2018 study by the CDC found that the suicide rate among
the US working-age population increased 34 percent from 2000
to 2016, one percentage point more than the rate for the general
population. But some professions have much higher rates than the
US average. For example, men working in the construction and
mining and petroleum extraction industry occupational group have
a suicide rate of 53.2 per 100,000 population, or 2.4 times the
The suicide rate among military veterans is 1.5 times higher than among
nonveterans.
