VA Suicide Prevention Algorithm REACH VET Reportedly Prioritizes Men Over Women Veterans
May 23, 2024
An AI program named REACH VET, designed and used by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to prevent veteran suicides, was reportedly found to prioritize white men while neglecting female veterans and survivors of military sexual trauma. This oversight persists despite rising suicide rates among these groups. The incident is an example of algorithmic bias and the exclusion of critical risk factors for female veterans.
- Alleged deployer
- department-of-veterans-affairs-(va)
- Alleged developer
- department-of-veterans-affairs-(va)
- Alleged harmed parties
- veterans, survivors-of-military-sexual-trauma, female-veterans
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/699
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.