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

What is time since separation

For ex-serving members who died by any cause during the monitoring period, time since separation is the time between full separation from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and date of death. For members who were alive at the end of the monitoring period, the time since separation is the time between their separation from the ADF and 31 December 2022. In this report, time since separation is presented in 5 groups (ranging from less than one year to 20 or more years).

The proportions of ex-serving ADF members, alive and deceased, that fall into each time since separation category are:

• Around half (54% of males and 55% of females) separated from the ADF 20 or more years ago, or 20 or more years before their death.
• Around a fifth (21% of males and 20% of females) separated from the ADF between 10 and 20 years ago, or between 10 and 20 years before their death.
• For males 14%, and for females 12% separated from the ADF between 5 and 10 years ago, or between 5 and 10 years before their death.
• For males 9.5%, and for females 10.1% separated from the ADF between 1 and 5 years ago, or between 1 and 5 years ago before their death.
• Around 2.3% of males and 2.4% of females separated less than 1 year ago, or less than 1 year before their death.

The average median time since separation for all ex-serving members was 22 years and the maximum length of time since separation observed in this study was 38 years.

Suicide rates by time since separation

Table 10 gives the suicide rates corresponding to these categories. The rates of suicide were similar regardless of time since separation for both ex-serving males and females, as demonstrated in Figure 17.

Notes:

1. The period between separation date and extract date (31 December 2022) for those alive at the extract date. The period between separation date and death for ex-serving members who have died.
2. Due to the study population, suicide rates for time since separation 20 or more are from 2005–2022.

* 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 17: Suicide rate by time since separation, ex-serving males and females, 1997–2022

Note: # 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.

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

Suicide rates for time since separation over time

Suicide rates over time in 3-year periods from 1997–1999 to 2020–2022 for ex-serving males by time since separation are presented in the interactive graph below (Figure 18). Note that due to small numbers of suicide deaths with less than one year since separation data are aggregated and presented for less than 5 years since separation.

Although there has been some small variation in the suicide rates for individual groups over time, these variations were not significant.

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

Figure 18: Rate of suicide for ex-serving males by time since separation, 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 S7.7. See Data for a link to the tables.

Suicide rates by time since separation and prior service status

Analysis of suicide rates by time since separation and various other service-related characteristics were conducted to assess their suitability for statistical modelling ¹. Modelling analysis assesses multiple service-related characteristics concurrently to control for confounding factors (See Modelling suicide rates).

This preliminary assessment demonstrated that the differences in suicide rates between the prior service status groups (See How do suicide rates compare between ex-serving members with permanent service and reserve service), ex-serving permanent and ex-serving reserve, change with time since separation.

Table 11 and Figure 19 show that among ex-serving males who separated less than 10 years ago (or less than 10 years before death), permanent ex-serving members had a higher suicide rate compared to reserve ex-serving members. However, among ex-serving males who separated 10 or more years ago (or 10 or more years before death), there is no statistically significant difference between the suicide rate of those who are permanent ex-serving and reserve ex-serving.

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

Figure 19: Suicide rate by time since separation and prior service status, ex-serving males, 1997–2022

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

For ex-serving females, there was no statistically significant difference in the suicide rate between permanent ex-serving and reserve ex-serving members, regardless of time since separation group.

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