Deaths Due to Injuries: Casualty Office Data

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Deaths Due to Injuries: Casualty Office Data

J. Helmkamp / J. W. Gardner / P. J. Amoroso

This paper reports on all deaths (i.e., accidents, illnesses, suicides, homicides, hostile actions, and deaths or undetermined cause) among active duty service members between 1980 and 1995. Data from the Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (DIOR) and casualty offices for each service are used to describe trends in injury deaths and compare injury deaths to other causes of death. The overall casualty rate declined 41% during this time, largely due to decreases in accidental deaths. The accidental casualty rate declined 52%, but remained the single greatest cause of death, accounting for 54% of casualties in 1993. Taken together, accidental deaths, suicides, and homicides accounted for 80% of casualties between 1980 and 1995. Motor vehicle accidents accounted for the greatest proportion of all casualties in 1994 in the Army (32%), the Navy (32%) and the Marine Corps (41%); in the Air Force, suicide accounted for the greatest proportion (30%). Although the 16-year period under study was characterized by relatively few hostile actions, deaths from hostile actions never accounted for more than 9% of all deaths in any given year between 1980 and 1995. These data demonstrate the enormous impact that accidental injury has on the U.S. Armed Forces.