Julia Brownley: “First I would like to thank Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Brown for their help in moving the Female Veteran Suicide…”

“First I would like to thank Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Brown for their help in moving the Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act forward. I would also like to recognize my colleague from Arizona whose bill honoring the memory of her constituent, Army veteran Sergeant Daniel Somers, has been included. Mr. Speaker, as you know, the women veteran population is more than 2 million and growing quickly. But our understanding of the experience of women in the military and women veterans is not keeping pace with this rapidly changing demographic. We agree that one of the most pressing and immediate issues we must address, as Members of Congress, is the tragic epidemic of suicide among all of our veterans. Last year Congress passed the Clay Hunt SAV Act, which required the VA to conduct annual evaluations of its suicide prevention and mental health programs. I am confident that the Clay Hunt bill will save lives. But recently researchers analyzed data from 23 States and the Suicide Repository on more than 170,000 suicides over a 10-year period. These researchers found data suggesting that female veteran suicide follows very different patterns than male veteran suicide. The statistics are extremely startling. Suicide among women veterans increased by an astounding 40 percent from 2000 to 2010. The suicide rate among veteran women is nearly six times higher than among nonveteran women.…”