Legislation in response to hike in female veterans’ suicide rate

Proposed legislation would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop gender-specific suicide prevention programs.

The “Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act” (H.R. 2915) directs the VA to identify mental health care and suicide prevention programs and metrics that are most effective in treating women veterans.

The legislation, passed by the House of Representatives in early February, was in response to an increase in suicide in female veterans detailed in a recent VA study.

Researchers tracked more than 174,000 veteran and non-veteran suicides from 2000 to 2010 and found that the rate of suicide among female veterans increased 40 percent during that time period.

Women account for 10 percent of the veteran population and are the fastest growing subpopulation of veterans treated by the VA, according to information released from the office of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Blumenthal co-sponsored the Senate version of the legislation (S. 2487), which has been referred to the Committee on Veterans Affairs.

“With suicide among women veterans happening at an alarming rate, this bill will help save lives by ensuring VA is providing the care, counseling and outreach these veterans need,” Blumenthal said.

Heather O’Beirne Kelly, Ph.D., lead psychologist for military and veterans policy, senior legislative and federal affairs officer, for the American Psychological Association, said the APA supports the Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act.

“H.R. 2915 directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to specifically identify and evaluate mental health care and suicide prevention programs that meet the critical needs of women veterans and to include women as a focus in relevant research programs,” Kelly said.

The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, signed into law in 2015, required an “independent third party” to evaluate the VA’s mental healthcare and suicide prevention programs. This new legislation would amend that law to also require “specific metrics applicable to women and to identify the VA mental health care and suicide prevention programs that are most effective and have the highest patient satisfaction rates among women veterans.”

Kelly said the VA has a very active portfolio of research and programming to identify and address the particular needs of women veterans, if and when they are different than the needs of male veterans. “In some areas this is an obvious issue, like when female veterans have gynecological needs or are pregnant, for example,” Kelly said.

“In terms of suicide, female veterans accessing care at the VA have shown an increasing and disturbingly higher rate when compared to women in similar but ‘civilian’ cohorts. Women veterans die by suicide at almost six times the rate of other women and women veterans are five times more likely to die by suicide than male veterans,” Kelly said.

Kelly said the APA also supports the second aspect of the legislation, which mandates that veterans who served in classified missions while on active duty be offered comprehensive mental health treatment within the VA that is sensitive to those veterans’ ongoing security needs.

Parents of a young veteran advocated for this measure after their son was assigned to group therapy at the VA and expressed concerns about the possibility of inadvertently sharing classified information in that setting while in the presence of those without appropriate clearances, Kelly said.

That veteran ultimately died by suicide and his parents worked to have language added in this bill ensuring that veterans who participated in classified missions could “access mental health care in a manner that fully accommodates their obligation to not improperly disclose classified information,” Kelly said.

“Should the Senate bill pass and then be conferenced with the House bill and signed into law by the President, the VA would be required to find alternative methods of mental health treatment for this group of veterans that meets their security needs,” Kelly said.