Mental health evacuations for deployed US troops are on the rise – By Hope Hodge Seck (Military Times) / Nov 9, 2023
While the rate of hospitalizations for active-duty troops is decreasing overall in the wake of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health related hospitalizations ― and even evacuations from deployed locations ― are on the upswing amid a growing national mental health epidemic.
That’s according to new survey data from the U.S. military’s Medical Surveillance Monthly Report. Issues published in the summer charted military health provider encounters and hospitalizations from 2018–2022, and also tracked five-year trends in troop medical evacuations for noncombat conditions.
Some of the trends are dramatic: In U.S. Central Command, the region encompassing the Middle East, medical evacuations attributed to mental health disorders have risen markedly every year since 2019.
