Overview (Service status)

Figure 1 presents data on suicide deaths between 1 January 1997 and 31 December 2023 among veterans who have served at least one day since 1 January 1985 by their service status at the time of death. Further information about the veteran population included in this report and the suicide monitoring period can be found in the Technical notes.

It is important to recognise that these groups are not homogenous and factors beyond service status and sex also contribute to the observed data. Due to the small number of suicide deaths among permanent and reserve females, suicide rates over time are not reported for these groups.

The subsequent veterans suicide monitoring sub-pages present data for sub-groups of ex-serving ADF members:

Suicide rates over time for permanent and reserve members are not shown on these pages due to small numbers. For demographic data for these populations, see Supplementary table S1.1 to S1.5 and S8.1 to S8.4.

  • Total deaths by suicide

    1,840

  • 1997–2023

    Permanent and Reserve: 308
    Ex-serving: 1,532

  • 2021–2023

    Permanent and Reserve: 39
    Ex-serving: 193

Figure 1: Rate of suicide by service status and sex, 1997–1999 to 2021–2023

This figure shows line graphs for the rate of suicide per 100,000 population per year by service status and sex over time by 3-year periods from 1997 to 1999, to 2021 to 2023. The annual Australian suicide rate by sex from 1997 to 2023 is also presented.

This figure shows line graphs for the rate of suicide per 100,000 population per year by service status and sex over time by 3-year periods from 1997 to 1999, to 2021 to 2023. The annual Australian suicide rate by sex from 1997 to 2023 is also presented.

Notes:

  1. Suicide rates for permanent and reserve female ADF veterans are not presented in this figure due to low counts. The number of suicide deaths among reserve males is not shown to prevent the derivation of other small numbers.
  2. Suicide rates are shown in overlapping 3-year periods to increase the suicide count for each data point and improve the reliability of the data.
  3. Deaths data for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 contain preliminary data and are subject to change as part of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revisions process. For example, some deaths currently coded as ‘undetermined intent’ could later be determined by a coroner as ‘intentional self-harm’ (or vice-versa).
  4. Confidence Intervals (CIs) of 95% are used to indicate statistical uncertainty in suicide rates. These should be considered when comparing suicide rates between time points.
  5. Suicide rates denoted with a '*' should be interpreted with caution as the number of suicides is fewer than 20. These rates are subject to large fluctuations. ‘*’ notation can be viewed when hovering over a data point.
  6. Comparisons over time should only be made for non-overlapping 3-year periods (for example the 3-year periods 2002–2004 and 2003–2005 should not be compared).
  7. The yearly direct age-standardised rate of suicide among the Australian population is presented for reference. Source: AIHW suicide and self-harm monitoring report data.
  8. 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.

See Data for underlying data (Table D2.1 to Table D2.3).

For the yearly number of deaths by suicide for permanent, reserve, and ex-serving members overall, see Supplementary table D1.2.

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