Note:
This something I have called for a number of times...should be
revealing
VA kicks off massive study of veterans’
deaths
By
Bob Brewin
February
1, 2013
The Veterans Affairs
Department has kicked off a massive study in cooperation with the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and the Defense Department to determine the cause
of veterans’ deaths since 1979, an effort that requires matching records of 34
million service personnel with death certificates.
Aaron Schneiderman,
acting director of VA’s epidemiology program, said the National Mortality Study
will first focus on roughly 1 million veterans who served on active duty during
the Afghanistan and Iraq wars from 2001 through 2010, which among other things
will help the VA determine the scope of veteran suicides on a national basis.
These matches only will include personal information such as name, date of birth
and Social Security number; they will not include Defense health
records.
A veteran commits
suicide every 80 minutes, according to recent estimates from the VA. Suicides by
active duty military personnel in 2012 hit 349, more than the 295 Americans who
died in combat in Afghanistan.
CDC’s Division of
Vital Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics will match records
provided by Defense with death certificate information from all 50 states
contained in the National Death
Index, said NDI director Lillian Ingster. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/ndi/about_ndi.htm
The NDI is a
computerized index of death record information on file in state vital statistics
offices and is used by epidemiologists and other health and medical
investigators to help determine causes of death. Ingster said the 34 million
records include everyone who has served in the military since 1979 -- when the
NDI went into operation. The study will involve the largest matching exercise in
which she has ever engaged.
“This is enormous,”
Ingster said. Her division has been grinding through the data since the end of
2012, with completion of the 34 million matches expected in a matter of months.
She said the veteran matching process encountered a few hiccups as the NDI was
switched from a mainframe to a server-based environment.
Schneiderman said
death certificates include standardized sources of information on causes of
deaths, including drug overdoses and chronic diseases. Once the matches are
completed, the results will help VA determine “how to care for veterans.”
Schneiderman said
once VA receives the data match file from CDC its first task will be to conduct
a mortality study of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans that will include an
evaluation of traumatic injury deaths (suicides and car crashes) and poisonings
(drug overdose).
He added that the
study also will help VA determine if there are factors that result in a higher
number of veteran deaths than in the general population. VA can then use
information to “drive down” particular causes of death, he
said.
Ingster agreed, and
said the medical research community and VA can use the study to improve
care.
Dr. Remington Nevin,
a former Army epidemiologist who left the service this fall to pursue a degree
in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in
Baltimore, said Defense and VA have made a good start in developing a national
veteran mortality database, but cautioned that death certificates prepared by
local coroners “can be pretty sloppy and there is no quality
control.”
Nevin said VA could
get better insight into veteran suicides if it also tapped into the CDC’s National Violent Death
Reporting System, which covers only 18 states. Ingster said CDC is not using
this system for the VA national mortality study.
If all 50 states
signed on to the National Violent Death Reporting System it would be a valuable
resource to help VA pinpoint veteran suicides, Nevin said.
By
Bob Brewin
February
1, 2013
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