Leading causes of death

This section presents information on the leading causes of death (including natural diseases or other external causes) to place deaths by suicide in a broader context.

Figure 9 presents the leading cause of death in permanent, reserve and ex-serving males and ex-serving females for 1997–2023 by age group, with the general Australian population comparison. Permanent and reserve females were not presented due to small numbers when disaggregated by age group. For the top 5 leading causes of death, see Supplementary tables S2.5 to S2.7.

Figure 9: Leading cause of death among ADF veterans and all Australians, by sex, age group and service status, 1997–2023

This figure shows tiles for the leading cause of death among ADF veterans and all Australians by sex, age group and service status for the period of 1997 to 2023.

This figure shows tiles for the leading cause of death among ADF veterans and all Australians by sex, age group and service status for the period of 1997 to 2023.

See Data for underlying data (Table S2.6 and S2.7).