Garbarino leads call for VA to openly share veteran suicide data

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) must address discrepancies between state, local, and federal suicide data for United States military veterans and be more transparent about sharing such data to help combat veteran suicides, said U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) and several of his colleagues. 

In September 2022, America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP) published an interim report on Operative Deep Dive, a project to combine local, state, and federal data to gain a comprehensive view of veteran suicides. 

“Strikingly, the report from Operation Deep Dive found that former service members take their life at a 2.4 times greater rate than previously reported by the VA,” wrote Rep. Garbarino and his colleagues in a March 2 letter sent to VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “These reports make clear that there are discrepancies between state, local, and federal veteran suicide data that must be addressed.”

Among the five members who joined Rep. Garbarino in signing the letter were U.S. Reps. Mark Amodei (R-NV) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NY). The members agreed that a community-wide effort is necessary to fully understand the various factors that may contribute to veteran suicide, especially discrepancies between data sets, according to their letter.

“While data security and privacy of our veterans is paramount, organizations like AWP regularly work with other federal and state agencies and work through these same concerns to form meaningful partnerships,” the lawmakers wrote. “We strongly encourage the VA to end the unnecessary wait and commit to working with those organizations like AWP that are committed to the same goal: ending veteran suicide.”

Jim Lorraine, AWP’s president and CEO, who endorsed the letter, also said the VA needs to be more open and transparent, especially sharing important data. “Together, we can do better,” he said. “We all need to work together to tackle the ongoing epidemic of veterans taking their own lives, and we look forward to working closely with the VA.”