James Donaldson on Mental Health - A Growing Epidemic of Loneliness Among US Military Veterans: National Trends, Psychiatric Burden, and Suicide Risk

Na, MD, MPH L oneliness is prevalent and clinically significant among US military veterans.

Nationally representative data from 2019–2020 indicate that 56.9% of US veterans endorsed at least moderate levels of loneliness, with nearly 1 in 5 (19.7%) experiencing frequent loneliness.

1 Loneliness is independently associated with substantial health burden and heightened suicide risk, 1–5 underscoring its importance as a transdiagnostic risk factor.

Given recent changes in the social context for veterans, including COVID-19 pandemic effects 6 and demographic shifts toward younger, female, and racially/ethnically diverse veterans, 7 groups at elevated risk for loneliness, 1 updated data are needed to inform prevention, treatment, and policy initiatives aimed at reducing loneliness and its consequences.

2,8,9 This study used 2025–2026 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS) data to estimate loneliness prevalence and changes since 2019–2020 and examine the association of loneliness with psychiatric disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Anchor Methods Data were analyzed from the 2025–2026 NHRVS, a nationally representative survey of 2,636 US veterans conducted December 16, 2025–January 12, 2026.

Of the 2,636 veterans surveyed, 24 (0.9%) had missing data on the loneliness measure and were excluded from analyses, yielding an effective analytic sample of 2,612.

The sample was drawn from KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel of >50,000 US households.

10 Poststratification weights were applied in inferential analyses to enable generalizability to the US veteran population.

11 All participants provided electronic informed consent; the study was approved by the VA Connecticut Healthcare System Human Subjects Committee.