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

Released by AIHW on Tuesday, 24 September 2024

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released the seventh annual update on Serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members who have served since 1985: suicide monitoring 1997 to 2022.

Since 2014, AIHW has worked in partnership with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to link Defence personnel information to health and welfare data to better understand deaths by suicide of veterans.

For guidance on reporting on suicide and self-harm data, please refer to the Mindframe quick reference guide.

What is included in the release?

The report released by AIHW contains information on suicide amongst Australian Defence Force (ADF) members who have served at least one day since 1985 and died by suicide between 1997 and 2022, including:

• Leading causes of death
• Suicide rates by service-related characteristics
• Modelling of suicide rates.

Technical notes provide more detailed information about the release, including statistical methodology, data sources and limitations.

What are the key findings?

• Suicide is the leading cause of death for younger, ex-serving ADF members for both males and females. Whilst this is also true for all Australians, suicide is a bigger proportion of all deaths among ex-serving members.

• Permanent and reserve males had age-adjusted suicide rates 47% and 45% lower than the Australian male population, respectively.
• Age-adjusted rates for ex-serving males were 26% higher compared to the Australian male population.
• The age-adjusted suicide rate for ex-serving females was two times higher than the Australian female population.
• Ex-serving males aged under 50 years (37 per 100,000 per year) had a higher suicide rate compared to ex-serving males aged over 50 years (20 per 100,000 per year). There was no significant difference in suicide rates amongst ex-serving females across age groups.
• Ex-serving males in the Air Force (22 per 100,000 per year) had lower suicide rates compared to the Army (32 per 100,000 per year) or Navy (34 per 100,000 per year). There was no significant difference in suicide rates among ex-serving females in the Navy, Army or Air Force.

Note: Ex-serving females who separated from the ADF involuntarily due to “retention not in service interest” or “other” are combined due to small numbers. No ex-serving females who separated due to contractual or administrative change died by suicide (0 per 100,000 per year).

• Males who separated involuntarily from the ADF for medical reasons had the highest suicide rate of all sub-groups in the report.
• For ex-serving males, suicide rates decreased as length of service increased. For ex-serving females, rates of suicide were similar for all service lengths.
• The suicide rate for ex-serving males who were officers at the time of separation (17 per 100,000 per year) was approximately half the rate of males in other ranks (33 per 100,000 per year).
• There was no significant difference in the suicide rates for ex-serving females who separated as officers (10 per 100,000 per year) and those who separated in other ranks (16 per 100,000 per year).

The report released by AIHW also included results from statistical modelling. Here, multiple service characteristics are analysed at the same time to better identify risk and protective factors for suicide. Including multiple factors in the same model adjusts for confounding effects (when one or more variables distorts the relationship between two other variables).

At any point in time, whilst controlling for other characteristics:

• Ex-serving females were less likely to die by suicide compared to males (HR = 0.6).
• People who were officers at time of separation were less likely to die by suicide compared to those in other ranks (HR = 0.7).
• People who separated for involuntary medical reasons were more likely to die by suicide compared to those who separated for voluntary reasons (HR = 2.3).
• People who separated involuntarily due to retention not being in service interest were more likely to die by suicide compared to those who separated for voluntary reasons (HR = 2.0).
• People who served for less than one year were more likely to die by suicide compared to those who served more than 10 years (HR = 1.9).
• People who served at least one day in the permanent forces were more likely to die by suicide compared to those who solely served in the reserve forces (within the first 10 years of separation; HR = 1.6).

What does this mean for policy and practice?

ADF members and veterans are identified as a priority population for suicide prevention in the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement. This seventh annual release from AIHW follows the release of the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

The Final Report contains the Commission’s analysis of complex cultural and systemic issues regarding suicide and suicidality among serving and ex-serving ADF members, including 122 recommendations to Government.

In combination with the Final Report of the Royal Commission, the data released by AIHW, helps to:

• Identify, monitor and report on suicide amongst serving and ex-serving ADF members.
• Understand service-related risk factors for suicide among serving and ex-serving ADF members.
• Recognise the diversity of serving and ex-serving ADF personnel; members come from different backgrounds, have varied career paths, and have different experiences with ADF culture, postings and deployments.
• Ensure ADF members are supported through periods of stress, such as separation from family, relationship breakdown, transition points, involuntary separation, exposure to traumatic events and service-related injuries.
• Work to address complex, systemic issues within ADF culture that contribute to suicide as part of a broader suicide prevention strategy.
• Evaluate the impact of suicide prevention approaches over time.