Misleading with statistics
By Sean Aqui | Related entries in Media, MilitaryThe headline on the AP story is breathless. “Army suicides highest in 26 years!”
That basic fact is true; Army suicides are up sharply, just like they spiked during the first Gulf War. The 2006 rate was 17.3 suicides per 100,000, a near doubling of the low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.
But a closer look at the numbers is in order before we start jumping to conclusions.
The 17.3 rate translates into 99 suicides out of a population of about 500,000 soldiers. So it’s hardly an epidemic.
And if you compare it to civilian suicide rates, it’s even less of an issue. A pair of pdfs here produce the following table:
2004 CIVILIAN SUICIDE RATES (per 100,000 population)
Overall: 11.1
Ages 15-24: 10.4
Males: 17.7
Wait a second, you say. Other than that “males” category, the military suicide rate is clearly much higher than the civilian rates.
But look what happens when we break down the “age” category even further and combine it with gender:
Males, age 15-19: 12.65
Males, age 20-24: 20.84
You can see where I’m going here. Soldiers are mostly males in their early 20s. So a proper comparison of apples to apples shows that the military suicide rate, despite being at a 26-year high, is still lower than the comparable civilian rate. All that in spite of combat stress, the stress of being part of a “stretched” military, and access to all sorts of military-grade weaponry.
People are right to be concerned. The rate has doubled, after all. It’s clearly a symptom of strain and each one is a personal tragedy besides. The military should do what it can to reduce those numbers.
But let’s not overreact. The problem is small, and soldiers are still less likely to kill themselves than civilians are. This is more an example of shallow and innumerate reporting than it is a sign of serious problems in the military.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 and is filed under Media, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 16th, 2007 at 3:08 am
Comparing civilian & military suicides is like comparing apples & oranges. Civilians are largely under self-responsibility (and perhaps that of “government” or “society”), while soldiers are under the responsibility of the military. Most civilians can “choose” their living & working conditions, while soldiers cannot.
So if the military suicide rate has doubled, then there’s definitely a problem, and it should be addressed - instead of the author’s cavalier conclusion of “Let’s not overreact… the problem is small…”
Well, to the families of those who commit suicide, the problem is definitely NOT small.
Regardless of one’s position on the war, whether for or against, there are problems, and they can be addressed with shorter terms of duty, more counseling, more prevention-based screening, etc.
August 16th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Interesting analysis–I’m always glad to see when people bring context to statistics. You were doing well until your unsubstantiated statement that “Soldiers are mostly males in their early 20s.”
August 16th, 2007 at 8:25 am
The suicide rate has doubled from an all time low. Thats like saying a newborn baby’s age doubled in matter of hours! Imagine if your age doubled in just a few hours!
Also noteworthy, is that there was a 26% increase in active-duty suicides from 1997 to 1999, during the Clinton administration.
There is a lot of standard variation and randomness to these statistics, but then again, that is probably Bush’s fault as well.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Justin: Why do you argue with that?
http://www.2k.army.mil/downloads/FY05ArmyProfile.pdf
The Army is about 85% male.
46% of soldiers are 24 or younger.
68% are 29 or younger.
Those percentages are even higher if you count only the enlisted ranks.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I think it would be interesting to see a longer trend of how military suicide rates have historically compared to civilian suicide rates beyond just 2006 and 2004 comparisons. Raw statistics are sort of interesting, but what would really be interesting would be some investigation into the reasons behind the statistics.
Intuitively, I would think that military suicide rates would be in general (after accounting for the effects of being deployed) lower than the suicide rate in the general population because I’d think that the things that traditionally qualify or disqualify people from military service would tend to select for more mentally stable people in military service.