The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has confirmed that former servicemen have higher rates of suicide than Australian men overall in a new report released this afternoon.
The report shows 292 former or serving defence force personnel took their own lives in the period 2001-2014 — 272 men and 20 women. The great majority were former servicemen and women — 142 out of the 292.
AIHW compared the suicide rate of servicemen and ex-servicemen (the numbers of women involved are too small for a useful comparison) to the overall population, adjusted for age to ensure a meaningful comparison. Men currently in uniform have lower suicide rates than men overall: for full-time Australian Defence Force personnel, the suicide rate was only 53% of that of the overall male population; for reservists, 46% of the overall rate.
However, the rate for former servicemen was 13% higher than that of the overall population. Younger ex-servicemen, in particular, have a very high rate — almost twice as high as that of the overall population, adjusted for age.
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.