Serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members who have served since 1985: suicide monitoring 1997 to 2022

Suicide rates by service

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) comprises 3 services:

• the Royal Australian Navy (Navy)
• the Australian Army (Army)
• 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 the Army (68% for males and 62% for females). By contrast, 16% of males and 18% of females were in the Navy, and 16% of males and 20% of females were in the Air Force.

The rate of suicide for ex-serving males from the Air Force was lower than for ex-serving males from the Army or Navy, as shown in Table 7 and Figure 10. There is no statistical difference between the suicide rates for different 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 subject to large fluctuations.

Source: AIHW analysis of linked Defence historical personnel data–PMKeyS–NDI data 1985–2022.

Figure 10: Suicide rate by service, ex-serving males and females, 1997–2022

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 subject to large fluctuations.

Source: AIHW analysis of linked Defence historical personnel data–PMKeyS–NDI data 1985–2022.

Suicide rates by service over time

The following graph (Figure 11) shows how suicide rates for ex-serving males by service varies over time in 3-year periods from 1997–1999 to 2020–2022. 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 11: Rate of suicide for ex-serving males by service, 1997–1999 to 2020–2022

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 subject to large fluctuations

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 1985–2022.

Data underlying this graph are available in Supplementary table S7.4. See Data for a link to the tables.

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