Veterans crisis line use among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander veterans: Contact reasons and risk assessment, by gender.

Suicide rates have increased substantially among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) veterans, as well as among women veterans. The Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) is a resource available to all veterans as part of the Department of Veterans Affairs' multifaceted suicide prevention strategy. Despite well-documented gender differences in suicide risk and reasons for contacting the VCL, little is known about AANHPI veterans' use of the VCL and whether their reasons for contacting the VCL differ by gender. This descriptive analysis examined the demographics, reasons for contacting the VCL, and suicide risk assessment ratings for AANHPI veterans who contacted the VCL, by gender, as a first step to better understand VCL use in this heterogenous population. Using VCL and Veterans Affairs administrative data, we examined demographics, reasons for contacting the VCL, and suicide risk assessment ratings for 1,645 AANHPI veterans who contacted the VCL in Calendar Year 2020, stratified by gender and disaggregated between Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) veterans. Mental health was indicated as the most frequent reason for VCL contact for AANHPI women (84.8% of contacts) and men (66.1% of contacts). Suicidal thoughts or crises (34.5% of women, 27.5% of men) were noted as the second most frequent reason for contact across groups, followed by relationship problems (23.7% of women, 21.4% of men). We observed some similar patterns across race/ethnicity and gender subgroups, with some variation between groups. Nearly three quarters (74.6%) of NHPI women endorsed suicide risk screen indicator(s), with lower proportions among AA women (69.1%), AA men (57.8%), and NHPI men (57.3%). Additionally, 12.7% of NHPI women, 9.8% of NHPI men, 8.1% of AA men, and 5.6% of AA women were rated by VCL responders as being at elevated suicide risk. These initial descriptive findings highlight the importance of disaggregating data both by gender and race/ethnicity among AANHPI veterans. Further study of suicide risk and protective factors salient to each subgroup of AANHPI veterans is a critical next step to suicide prevention among these veterans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).