Pentagon Data Shows High Suicide Rates Among Troops Exposed to Blasts

Risk factors other than blast exposure may be contributing to higher suicide rates, said Katherine Kuzminski, an expert on the military and veterans at The Center for a New American Security. For example, bomb technicians may deploy more often, and be exposed to more traumatic situations, than other troops, she said. And high-risk combat jobs may attract people with pasts that predispose them to suicide risk, independent of what happens while they are in uniform.

“This report is a good first step,” Ms. Kuzminski said. “It provides us the data to start asking the right questions. But there are still a lot of questions.”

Chief among them, she said, is how exposure to repeated blasts from weapons affects suicide risk.

The military does not track the blast exposure of individual service members, so it does not have data to show whether exposure erodes mental health.

Read the full story and more from The New York Times.