Health Care for Veterans: Suicide Prevention

[Excerpt] Congress has attempted to address the problem of suicide among veterans through legislation and oversight hearings, both on prevention of veteran suicide specifically and on veteran mental health more broadly. A task as challenging as preventing suicide requires collaboration among federal agencies, state and local governments, other organizations, communities, and individuals. This report, however, focuses on activities of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VHA’s approach to suicide prevention is based in part on the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, which involves multiple federal departments, including the VA, Defense (DOD), and Education (ED), as well as several agencies within Health and Human Services (HHS). While this CRS report focuses on suicide prevention efforts of the VHA, activities of other entities are discussed as they relate to VHA activities. This CRS report begins with a brief overview of the public health framework for suicide prevention, which forms the basis for both the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and the VHA’s approach to suicide prevention. The three subsequent parts of the report correspond to the three major components of the public health framework: (1) suicide surveillance, (2) suicide risk factors and protective factors, and (3) suicide prevention interventions. The final section addresses potential issues for Congress, and the Appendix summarizes provisions of public laws addressing suicide prevention among veterans

The Mental Health Workforce: A Primer

[Excerpt] Congress has held hearings and introduced legislation addressing the interrelated topics of the quality of mental health care, access to mental health care, and the cost of mental health care. The mental health workforce is a key component of each of these topics. The quality of mental health care depends partially on the skills of the people providing the care. Access to mental health care relies on, among other things, the number of appropriately skilled providers available to provide care. The cost of mental health care depends in part on the wages of the people providing care. Thus an understanding of the mental health workforce may be helpful in crafting policy and conducting oversight. This report aims to provide such an understanding as a foundation for further discussion of mental health policy

Traumatic Brain Injury Among Veterans

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been defined as "an alteration in brain function, or other evidence of brain pathology, caused by an external force." In the general population, TBI results mainly from falls, motor vehicle/traffic accidents, assaults, and other instances in which the head is struck by or strikes against an object. In military service members, TBI may also result from improvised explosive devices, mortars, grenades, bullets, or mines

Active Opioid Legislation in the House: In Brief

This report briefly summarizes opioid-related bills that were considered during "Opioid Week" (the week of May 9, 2016) The summaries in this report may be useful illustrations of the range of approaches Members of Congress have proposed to address the problem of opioid addiction

Suicide Prevention Efforts of the Veterans Health Administration

This report discusses seven areas of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) suicide prevention interventions: easy access to care, education, screening and treatment, limited access to lethal means, suicide hotline, media restrictions, and suicide prevention coordinators

Suicide, PTSD, and Substance Use Among OEF/OIF Veterans Using VA Health Care: Facts and Figures

This brief report addresses three relevant topics that affect veterans: suicide, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorders

Health Care for Veterans: Traumatic Brain Injury

[Excerpt] Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become known as a “signature wound” of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). Several years into these operations, both Congress and the executive branch showed increased attention to the health care needs of servicemembers and veterans returning from deployments with injuries—and specifically the needs of those with TBI. For example, pursuant to the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-206), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) formed a Leadership Panel to (among other things) recommend ways for the four agencies to collaborate further to develop and improve TBI diagnosis and treatment. These four agencies have implemented many of the Leadership Panel’s recommendations, and in some cases implementation is ongoing. Congressional attention to TBI among veterans has continued as well. This report focuses on current efforts of the VA’s Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to understand, identify, and treat TBI among veterans. It begins with an overview of TBI as background for the subsequent discussion of VA programs and services relevant to veterans with TBI, some of which focus on (or are limited to) OEF/OIF veterans.CRS_Health_care_for_veterans.pdf: 223 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Suicide Prevention Efforts of the Veterans Health Administration

Responsibility for prevention of veteran suicide lies primarily with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VHA Strategic Plan for Suicide Prevention is based on a public health framework, which has three major components: (1) surveillance, (2) risk and protective factors, and (3) prevention interventions. This report identifies challenges the VHA faces in each component of suicide prevention and discusses potential issues for Congress

Traumatic Brain Injury Among Veterans

This report discusses traumatic brain injury (TBI) among veterans receiving care in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities, with particular attention to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans