The Fort Campbell High Interest Program

Abstract

The suicide statistics in the U.S. Army are sobering. Beginning with the current confl icts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army suicide rate has been climbing. The latest numbers, as noted in the Army “Suicide Prevention Report 2010,” show Army rates outpacing age-matched controls in 2008, 20.2 to 19.2 per 100,000, despite the Army historically having lower rates than the general population. In 2009, the rate was even higher at approximately 22 per 100,000. 1 The Army has aggressively tried to tackle the suicide problem. At Fort Campbell, a major U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) platform and home of the 101st Airborne Division, the suicide rate had become particularly high—at least 11 by summer 2009—resulting in a temporary deployment of 30 additional Army mental health personnel (including W.W. ) from various posts to Fort Campbell. Among the many programs implemented at Fort Campbell in the wake of these suicides was the “High Interest Program” (HIP). The purpose of this report is to discuss the HIP in detail so that it may serve as a model for behavioral health interventions. The HIP mission is to manage suicidal or other high-risk soldiers through a coordinated and consolidated team approach, essentially creating a safety net to prevent high-risk cases from “slipping through the cracks.” Soldiers recently discharged from a psychiatric ward were identifi ed as the initial target population, given that the majority of suicides occur within several months of being discharged from an inpatient psychiatric unit. 2 Of note, there is no inpatient psychiatric unit at Fort Campbell, and all soldiers are hospitalized at civilian facilities in the surrounding community, sometimes an hour away.