OK this is in D&D because its IRaq.......BUT I am not here to diminish our sacrifice or on any agenda to say its "not dangerous" or "safer than detroit" like I remember the Rush ditto heads saying a few years ago. This is not a political statement thread. The premise of the thread is simple. 1. I like numbers 2. The incredible work of our medical teams over there. 3. 18-25 year old males scare the crap out of me on the freeway and in parking lots. Learn how to drive! Ok so this is how I got this magical number: CDC death rate for males aged 19-35 (138 per 100K per year) and 35-45(243 per 100K per year). I kinda cheated on the demographics I just went off this site which is a little out of date: http://www.prosebeforehos.com/government_employee/06/30/age-demographics-of-us-casualties-in-iraq/ and said that 12% of the force will fall under the 35-45 age bracket for deaths. Also to make the math easier I used 150K as the force we have there. The invasion was 250K, and right now we have over 150K but it varied over the years. So here is how it breaks down. Including all causes of death the stats say - 1298 should have died. If you remove homocide the number falls to 1147 which is much higher than the ~900 that have actually died (this is a real number) from reasons other than enemy action. But if you remove the suicides from that 900 (122) you get 778 (again a real number). This compares with CDC stats of 985 dead (985 is minus suicides and homocides). 27% difference! Interesting note -The suicide rate in Iraq is actually LOWER than the USA. I was not expecting this one, even after I saw 122 suicides. 122 suicides calculated out to a rate of ~16 per 100K/yr which is 5 points lower than in USA. Again, I do not want to vacation in Iraq, it is a warzone, people are losing their limbs, I have a friend in Iraq who has a 1 year old and a wife at home. This thread is just sharing interesting unexpected numbers. CDC link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_05.pdf
From: Chasen, Ev Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:40 AM To: Katz, Ira R. Subject: Re: Not for the CBS News Interview Request I think this is something we should discuss among ourselves, before issuing a release. Is the fact that we’re stopping them good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide. From: Katz, Ira R Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:27 AM To: Chasen, Ev Subject: FW:Not for the CBS News Interview Request Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it? Ira R Katz, MD, PhD Deputy Chief Patient Care Services Office for Mental Health
