THE FOLLOW UP
STATEMENT

Report: 61% of Veterans who died by suicide in 2023 had not used VA health care in their last year

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The report's data show that 61% of Veteran suicide decedents in 2023 had no VA health care use in the year before death.

Source summary
The Department of Veterans Affairs released its National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report with data through 2023, reporting 6,398 Veteran suicides in 2023 (down from 6,442 in 2022) and a slight drop in average daily suicides to 17.5. The report notes 61% of Veterans who died by suicide in 2023 were not receiving VA health care in the prior year, small increases in suicide rates per 100,000 for both men and women, and elevated risk among ages 18–34 and those experiencing homelessness, health problems or pain. VA outlined prevention efforts and program metrics, including outreach that enrolled ~33,000 previously unenrolled Veterans, identification of 140,000 at‑risk Veterans through an interoperability pledge, 1.3 million crisis-line contacts in FY2025, and expanded screening and grant programs.
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Latest fact check

Unable to access the full VA annual report text programmatically to confirm the exact wording and source table; VA's official news release on VA.gov (Feb 5, 2026) states the claim verbatim, but I could not locate the statistic in the published 2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report PDF within available fetches. Recommend re-checking the report PDF for the 2023 data tables and Appendix to confirm the 61% figure directly from the report. Marked as Tech Error pending direct verification from the report.

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Timeline

  1. Scheduled follow-up · Feb 12, 2026overdue
  2. Update · Feb 06, 2026, 05:33 AMTech Error
    Unable to access the full VA annual report text programmatically to confirm the exact wording and source table; VA's official news release on VA.gov (Feb 5, 2026) states the claim verbatim, but I could not locate the statistic in the published 2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report PDF within available fetches. Recommend re-checking the report PDF for the 2023 data tables and Appendix to confirm the 61% figure directly from the report. Marked as Tech Error pending direct verification from the report.
  3. Scheduled follow-up · Feb 06, 2026overdue
  4. Update · Feb 06, 2026, 04:46 AMTech Error
    Unable to access definitive VA primary-source report pages/PDFs that show the underlying 2023 analysis (press release is available and contains the quoted sentence). VA’s official press release (Feb 5, 2026) states the claim, but I could not retrieve the annual-report PDF or data sheet that the release references to confirm the statistic’s table/figure. Recommend verifying the figure in VA’s National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report (2023 data release) when the agency’s report or data table is accessible.
  5. Completion due · Feb 06, 2026
  6. Original article · Feb 05, 2026
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