The Pentagon has vowed to take action, including through financial investments, to address rising suicide rates.
Suicides increased among U.S. military service members in 2023, continuing a gradual rise seen over the past decade, according to the Department of Defense’s annual report on suicide in the military.
A total of 523 service members—including active, reserve, and National Guard—died by suicide in 2023, up from 493 in 2022, according to the Pentagon’s report, while the total force rate of suicide deaths per 100,000 service members was 9 percent higher than in 2022, at 25.6 per 100,000.
The Pentagon’s report highlighted an upward trend since 2011 among active-duty military members: A total of 363 active-duty service members died by suicide in 2023, up from 331 in 2022 and 328 in 2021.
The report noted that military suicide rates have been comparable to those seen across the wider U.S. population between 2011 and 2022.
The findings “urgently demonstrate the need for the Department to redouble its work in the complex fields of suicide prevention and postvention. One loss to suicide is one too many,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a Nov. 14 statement.
The defense secretary said the Pentagon is focused on long-term, sustained initiatives to prevent suicide and is taking a “comprehensive” and “integrated” approach to increasing protective factors and decreasing the risk of suicide among service members.
“Our efforts aim to meet the military community where they are in their personal and professional lives—whether through bolstering financial readiness and support, building healthy relationships, improving mental health, or supporting them through life transitions,” Austin said.
The defense secretary noted that there has been a decrease from previous years in the number of military family members (spouses and dependent children combined) who died by suicide.
A total of 146 military family members died by suicide in 2022 compared to 165 in 2021, and 200 in 2020, according to the report. Numbers for 2023 were unavailable due to the time it takes to process data for this category.
The report noted that the complexity of suicidal behavior means it is difficult to identify a single root cause that might explain the trend.
