TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - Veterans and suicide: a reexamination of the national death index-linked national health interview survey
JO  - American journal of public health
A1  - Miller, Matthew C.
A1  - Barber, Catherine
A1  - Young, Melissa
A1  - Azrael, Deborah R.
A1  - Mukamal, Kenneth
A1  - Lawler, Elizabeth
SP  - S154
EP  - S159
VL  - 102
IS  - Suppl 1
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0090-0036
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300409
ID  - ref1
ER  -