Can Access to Data Prevent Army Suicides?: Identifying Optimal Response Strategies for Army Leaders

Over the past decade, the U.S. Army has invested significant resources in its efforts to prevent suicide and respond to a well-documented increase in suicides among active-duty soldiers. Among the efforts under way is a program to develop an information system that provides leaders with data on individual- and unit-level suicide risk factors and could serve as the basis for prevention and intervention activities. One shortfall of this approach is the lack of guidance on how Army leaders should interpret and use this information. To address this gap, RAND Arroyo Center convened a group of experts to reach consensus on recommended actions for leaders who are informed that an individual soldier exhibits a risk factor for suicide or that their unit exhibits an atypically high prevalence of suicide risk factors or a concerning trend of suicidality. The experts generally agreed that information on suicide risk indicators could be useful to unit leaders if they also received guidance on appropriate actions from behavioral health providers-and central to any response is the need to keep information about individual soldiers confidential. At the unit level, data on atypically high-risk behaviors should prompt a "root cause" analysis to discern whether the heightened prevalence is a reflection of actual behaviors or can be explained by other factors. The experts concluded that unit-level suicide trend data have limited utility for leader action because suicide is a relatively rare event and because individuals assigned to a unit change over time. The results of the exercise led to several recommendations on the use of data in response planning for Army leaders and directions for future research.