From a life spent on count statistics, one thing I think is interesting is how definitively you can reject perfect randomness from a very small sample like this.

The expected event count from 17,000 people exposed to a month of constant uniform event risk with an annual hazard rate of 20 per 100,000 per year is 0.28. The p-value for observing a count of 5 from a (Poissonian) mean of 0.28 is 1 in 100,000. So it's pretty unlikely by perfect random chance.

The other thing you see in a life spent in count statistics is a lot of statistically extreme events that turn out to have no deep or predictive significance.

I think you’d have some statistical complications around stress: beyond the inherent pressure of the job itself, it’s highly likely that they were understaffed even before losing a lot of support when the DOGE chainsaws were in “cut first, measure later” mode — I know multiple people in the military who are still running at like half productivity because telework was cancelled so everyone’s day is a couple hours longer commuting into an office where they’re sitting on the floor because there aren’t enough desks — and if they were married to another federal employee they might be dealing with loss of income or childcare (DOGE closed the GSA office which handled that, apparently to pressure parents into resigning) at the same time.

The suicide rate isn't uniformly distributed given gender. There are likely screenings (previous mental health history) and rejection of the most affected age group (70+) that should lead the baseline to be even lower. Meaning 18x is probably on the low end.

Suicides are not independent statistical events and sadly often come in "clusters"

I mean, let's be real for a second. It's cybersecurity.

Yes, it does skew male, but you're probably looking at 10x the standard population density of Autistics, and 20x the density of trans women.

I'm sure there are other "sociologically valid" ways you can measure this too, but there is absolutely a correlation between having the type of brain that is able to perform offensive cybersecurity operations and mental illness/social rejection/isolation.

I think that it would be necessary to correct for things like income and education level since engineers in cyber command are likely not representative of the general public.

This particular population is highly selected because of the work they do and the types of clearances they hold. I would expect the suicide rate to differ significantly from the general population.

Stress, PTSD, and overwork can and do aggravate mental health issues. All of these are probably hitting these people - probably at the same time.

That's not saying much. The real distribution is probably heavily skewed by risk factors such as poverty, age, drug abuse, etc.

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