An examination of suicide amongst war vet performed by MDPI revealed that the suicide is prevalent amongst certain social groups and certain topics come up such as are the members of these groups at higher risk of suicide as opposed to the rest of the population? Moreover, what if any environmental triggers exist to impact suicide rates? Most importantly, can targeted prevention programs be implemented within this framework and is it possible to improve …show more content…
This same report pointed out that each month 950 suicide attempts occur to veterans while receiving services through the Veterans Administration (VA). Speculations amongst VA officials believe that a better screening and reporting system could hold the key to suicide prevention for the nations’ veterans (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2014).
The First DOD directive policy 6490.14 consists of a complete DOD wide procedure to address suicide prevention. This policy ascertains regulated definitions and allocates accountability for the Defense Suicide Prevention Program (Defense Suicide Prevention Office, 2014)
The following are active policies developed to aid in the prevention of suicide [borrowed from (Kemp & Bossarte, 2012)]:
• 1999-Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent Suicide
• 2001-National Strategy for Suicide Prevention lays the basis for the Nation’s strategy to confront Suicide as a public health problem.
• 2002-Institute of Medicine Report-Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative
• 2003-President’s New Freedom Commission
• 2004-Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act
• 2005-Federal Action Agenda
• 2006-Establishment of Federal Working Group on Suicide …show more content…
This organization supervised all operations to be considered for development, centralization, consistency, contact and assessments of DOD suicide and risk reduction programs as well as policies and surveillance activities. The goal of this organization is to decrease the effect of suicide amongst service members and their families. In order to obtain this goal, the DSPO utilizes various methods related to policy, research, communications, law and behavioral health. DSPO has a joint venture with the armed forces to support and strengthen service members to become resilient and strive to promote a climate that urges service members to pursue and help for their respective potential behavioral mental health issues (Defense Suicide Prevention Office,