November 2023 — MHCE Newsletter

10 | MHCE - News www.mhce.us NOVEMBER 2023 EDITION
Military suicides overall dropped in 2022 as
active-duty rate goes up and Pentagon works on
prevention
WASHINGTON — The suicide rate among
active-duty troops slightly increased in 2022
as the overall number of suicides decreased in
the military, according to an annual Pentagon
report released Thursday.
The Pentagon reported an active-duty suicide
rate of about 25 suicide deaths for every
100,000 service members last year, a 3%
increase from 2021.
“The rate difference is not statistically
significant, so we have low confidence this is
a true change. It could be natural variability
or chance,” said Liz Clark, the Pentagon’s
director of the Defense Suicide Prevention
Office.
Clark said this also holds true for the rate of
decreases among the Reserve and National
Guard troops of 12% and 18%, respectively.
Elizabeth Foster, the executive director of the
Pentagon’s Force Resiliency Office, said due
to the decreasing size of the active-duty force,
the Defense Department believes the rate of
suicides, rather than the number of suicides, is
a more accurate measure.
The department’s fifth annual “Suicide in the
Military” report showed 492 service members