The San Diego Union-Tribune is running a story by Gretel Kovach about increasing rates of suicide in the Marine Corps. The piece claims the Marine Corps reported the highest suicide rate among the armed forces for 2009. It goes on to describe Navy Medicine's efforts to try to address the problem:

“We never slowed our efforts in suicide prevention,” so the rising rates have been stunning, said Cmdr. Aaron Werbel, head of the Marine Corps’ Suicide Prevention Program. “There has been a lot of really serious concern. Of all the things we are doing, what are we missing? Is there something that we have not hit upon yet that would help us turn this around?”

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“We feel very strongly about targeted, evocative training for leaders at all levels that makes suicide prevention organic to the culture of the Marine Corps, so it is not seen as some touchy-feely, different thing,” Werbel said.

Comment: Is there any evidence that these programs actually reduce rates of suicide over a long period of time? Is it possible the military's efforts to engage in suicide prevention are making the problem worse? "Evocative" therapies were shown to possibly make PTSD worse in some research studies. We need to do a better job of using science and evidenced based approaches to tackling this problem.