Veteran Suicide: VA Needs Accurate Data and Comprehensive Analyses to Better Understand On-Campus Suicides

Abstract

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) process for identifying on-campus suicides does not include a step for ensuring the accuracy of the number of suicides identified. As a result, its numbers are inaccurate. VAs Veterans Health Administration (VHA) first started tracking on-campus veteran suicides in October2017, and uses the results to inform VA leadership and Congress. GAO reviewed the data and found errors in the 55 on-campus veteran suicides VHA identified for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, including 10 overcounts (deaths that should not have been reported but were) and four undercounts (deaths that should have been reported but were not).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2020
Accession Number
AD1173229

Entities

People

  • Debra A. Draper

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accountability
  • Congress
  • Covid-19
  • Death
  • Department Of Veterans Affairs
  • Diseases And Disorders
  • Governments
  • Handbooks
  • Health
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • House Of Representatives
  • Law
  • Medical Personnel
  • Mental Health
  • Mental Health Services
  • Predictive Modeling
  • Training
  • United States
  • United States Government
  • Veterans Health

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Mental Health of Military Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Risk Factors, Prevalence, Symptoms, and Treatment.
  • Psychological Intervention/Treatment for Stress, Anxiety, PTSD, and Related Emotional and Cognitive Health Symptoms.