# Lethal Suicide Methods in Aging Veterans: Associated Profiles, Trajectories, and Transitions Informing Attempts

> **NIH VA I01** · VETERANS AFFAIRS MED CTR SAN FRANCISCO · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Older Veterans are an important and understudied population for suicide prevention. Adults 65 years and older
will be 20% of the US population and 50% of the Veteran population by 2030. It has been documented that the
majority of decedents who die by suicide in the Veteran population are Veterans 50 years and older (≥ 69%)
and over 40% Veterans 65 years and older. Moreover, older adults, including Veterans, have high rates of
premeditated lethal means of suicide method indicating less impulsivity and more opportunity to intervene;
thus, studying older Veterans is a high priority for supporting suicide prevention. In the current proposal, our
objective is to understand the combination of factors that lead to suicide death for aging Veterans by identifying
the short- and long-term typologies that best characterize suicide death among older Veterans and by
examining pathways from suicide attempt to mortality. Thus far, our research suggests that there are distinct
acute medical and psychiatric profiles and potential trajectories that may influence an older individual’s long-
term risk of suicide and employment of lethal means, which further influences policies and strategies for
mitigation and prevention. To capture these profiles and trajectories, we will use latent clustering techniques to
uniquely characterize (separately by social and clinical characteristics) those who attempt and die by suicide.
The current proposed research builds on a productive, ongoing body of suicide research in older Veterans. Our
work has informed prognostic factors (e.g., psychoactive medication use), timing and burden of diagnosis (i.e.,
recent diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or dementia), and life transitions (i.e., reentry into community
from incarceration) associated with increased risk of suicide attempt. Yet, major gaps remain in our
understanding of how best to characterize risk for lethality of suicide attempt. Short- and long-term precursors
delineated by profiles and trajectories of social risk factors (e.g., housing instability, financial strain,
interpersonal violence) may inform suicide risk and lethal means of suicide death (e.g., firearms, drug
overdose). We propose in this current application to build on the nationally representative cohort for late-life
suicide research formed in the PI’s existing CSR&D Merit Award project (the “Older Veteran Suicide Risk
Dataset”, CX001119; PI: Byers) with new questions to determine profiles, trajectories, care transitions, and
social and clinical factors contributing to risk of suicide attempt and death by suicide in aging Veterans. This
unique cohort comprises all Veterans (~5,000,000) who used VA health care services and were aged 50 years
and older in fiscal year 2012-2013, prospectively followed to present with data updated annually. The cohort
includes information on demographics, all psychiatric and medical diagnoses, prescription medication use,
laboratory measures, and information on all suicide-relate...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10807897
- **Project number:** 2I01CX001119-09A1
- **Recipient organization:** VETERANS AFFAIRS MED CTR SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Amy Lynn Byers
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2015-07-01 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10807897

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10807897, Lethal Suicide Methods in Aging Veterans: Associated Profiles, Trajectories, and Transitions Informing Attempts (2I01CX001119-09A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10807897. Licensed CC0.

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