@article{ref1,
title="Veterans and suicide: a reexamination of the national death index-linked national health interview survey",
journal="American journal of public health",
year="2012",
author="Miller, Matthew C. and Barber, Catherine and Young, Melissa and Azrael, Deborah R. and Mukamal, Kenneth and Lawler, Elizabeth",
volume="102",
number="Suppl 1",
pages="S154-S159",
abstract="Objectives. We assessed the risk of suicide among veterans compared with nonveterans. Methods. Cox proportional hazards models estimated the relative risk of suicide, by self-reported veteran status, among 500 822 adult male participants in the National Death Index (NDI)-linked National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a nationally representative cohort study. Results. A total of 482 male veterans died by suicide during 1 837 886 person-years of follow-up (76% by firearm); 835 male nonveterans died by suicide during 4 438 515 person-years of follow-up (62% by firearm). Crude suicide rates for veterans and nonveterans were, respectively, 26.2 and 18.8 per 100 000 person-years. The risk of suicide was not significantly higher among veterans, compared with nonveterans, after adjustment for differences in age, race, and survey year (hazard ratio = 1.11; 95% confidence interval = 0.96, 1.29). Conclusions. Consistent with most studies of suicide risk among veterans of conflicts before Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, but in contrast to a previous study using the NDI-linked NHIS data, we found that male veterans responding to the NHIS were modestly, but not significantly, at higher risk for suicide compared with male nonveterans.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0090-0036",
doi="10.2105/AJPH.2011.300409",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300409"
}