Serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members who have served since 1985: suicide monitoring 1997 to 2021

Suicide rates by service

The ADF comprises 3 services: the Royal Australian Navy (Navy), the Australian Army (Army) and the Royal Australian Air Force (Air Force). An individual may move between services over their career. Unless stated otherwise, the service recorded for ex-serving members is their service at their time of separation.

The majority of ex-serving members were in Army (68% for males and 62% for females). By contrast 16% of males and 18% of females were in Navy, and 16% of males and 20% of females were in Air Force.

The rate of suicide for ex-serving males from Air Force was lower than for ex-serving males from Army or Navy, as shown in Table 6 and Figure 7 below. However, note that the Cox proportional hazards modelling analysis from the 2022 report, which evaluated the effects of multiple service characteristics concurrently, showed that this effect disappeared when other service characteristics were accounted for (AIHW 2022). There is no statistical difference between the suicide rates for difference services among ex-serving females.

Note: * Suicide rates in this Table denoted with a '*' should be interpreted with caution as the number of suicides is fewer than 20. These rates are considered potentially volatile.

Source: AIHW analysis of linked Defence historical personnel data–PMKeyS–NDI data 1985–2021.

Figure 7: Suicide rate by service, ex-serving males and females, 1997–2021

Source: AIHW analysis of linked Defence historical personnel data–PMKeyS–NDI data 1985–2021.

Suicide rates by service over time

The following graph (Figure 8) shows how suicide rates for ex-serving males by service varies over time in 3-year periods from 1997–1999 to 2019–2021. While there is some fluctuation, the wide confidence intervals mean that no statistically significant differences over time were detected. 

Due to small number of suicide deaths among ex-serving females, suicide rates over time are not reported.

Figure 8: Rate of suicide for ex-serving males by service, 1997–1999 to 2019–2021

Notes: 

* Suicide rates in this Figure denoted with a '*' should be interpreted with caution as the number of suicides is fewer than 20. These rates are considered potentially volatile.

The confidence intervals in this Figure can be used to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the suicide rates calculated for the ADF between different 3-year periods. However, they cannot be used to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between rates calculated for the ADF population for overlapping 3-year time periods (for example 2002–2004 and 2003–2005).

Source: AIHW analysis of linked Defence historical personnel data–PMKeyS–NDI data 1985–2021.

Data underlying this graph are available in Supplementary table S6.4. See Data for a link to the tables.

Please note, data for more recent years are subject to change; see the Technical notes for further detail.