Serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members: suicide monitoring 1997 to 2023

This suicide monitoring report uses information from the Defence Personnel Management Key Solution (PMKeyS) system (implemented on 1 January 2001), and a range of Defence historical personnel systems (used prior to 2001), to develop a list of all members who served at least one day since 1 January 1985. This data is then linked to the National Death Index (NDI). Death data is reported from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2023.

Suicide rates prior to 1997 are not provided as data in the National Death index (NDI) is incomplete (or otherwise unusable) before this date. That is, prior to 1997, the linkage between Defence personnel data and NDI deaths data is likely to under-report deaths due to suicide. Consequently, extending the deaths analysis to the period prior to 1997 was not considered to be appropriate.

Due to limitations in historical personnel records from the Department of Defence, the study population does not include ADF veterans with service prior to 1 January 1985.

The national reporting of deaths by suicide has a time lag of up to two years. Deaths that are referred to a coroner (including deaths by suicide) can take some time to be fully investigated by the relevant State or Territory. Accordingly, all coroner-certified deaths registered after 1 January 2006 are subject to a revisions process. For open coroner’s cases, this allows the cause of death to be included at a later time (when the case is closed during the revision period). Cause of death data compiled by the ABS are considered preliminary when first published. The revised and final versions of the data are typically published 12 and 24 months after initial processing respectively.

Overall, males serving in a permanent capacity and males in the reserves are about half as likely to die by suicide than all Australian males.

Ex-serving members have higher suicide rates than the general Australian population. However, the ex-serving population is not homogenous, and other factors may have contributed to the differing rates of suicide observed for subpopulations of ex-serving members.

Notably, ex-serving males who voluntarily separated were no more likely to die by suicide than the general Australian male population. Ex-serving males who involuntarily separated for medical reasons and ‘Retention not in service interest’ reasons were more likely to die by suicide than the general Australian male population.

Compared with the Australian population, suicide rates (after adjusting for age) between 1997 and 2023 were:

• 48% lower for permanent males
• 45% lower for reserve males
• 25% (or 1.25 times) higher for ex-serving males
• 98% (or 1.98 times) higher for ex-serving females.

This report includes the comparison of suicide rates for serving and ex-serving ADF members with the suicide rates for the general Australian population. The comparison provides an understanding of how suicide rates among veterans change over time with respect to the general Australian population. This provides a context within which to understand veteran suicide rates but does not provide strong evidence for or against the existence of a protective factor associated with current (permanent or reserve) ADF service.

Further analyses, including sophisticated modelling and/or prospective research studies could be undertaken to further understand if a causative link exists between current ADF service and risk of suicide. This is beyond the scope of this suicide monitoring report.

When considering suicide rates in ADF veterans, it is important to consider what is occurring in the general Australian population. For example, the age and sex demographics for the ADF population differ from the Australian population¹.

This report presents comparisons with the Australian population for sub-groups of ADF veterans by age, sex, service status (permanent, reserve, and ex-serving) and reason for separation.

There are other sub-groups being studied within the veteran population where comparisons may be useful, including service branch (Army, Navy, Air Force), rank, length of service, and time since separation. For these veteran sub-groups, comparisons may be made across sub-groups (for example, Army compared with Navy and Air Force).

The AIHW acknowledges the desire for further analysis of ADF suicide rates that explore additional comparator populations. For example, studying suicide rates in ex-serving veterans who experienced involuntary medical separation and people in the general Australian population who experienced loss of employment due to medical conditions. While considerable benefit is likely to be gained through more detailed analyses, this is beyond the scope of this suicide monitoring report.

(1) To illustrate, the permanent, reserve and ex-serving ADF populations have different age structures with median ages of 31, 37 and 53 years respectively compared with 45 years for the Australian population over 17 years of age. While the permanent, reserve and ex-serving populations are 83% male, and the Australian population is 50% male.