David Clinton

Any single suicide is an unspeakable tragedy. But public health officials should be especially alarmed when the numbers of suicides among a particular population spike. Between 2019 and 2023, the suicide rate across Canada fell from 12.3 per 100,000 to 9.5 per 100,000. U.S. numbers aren’t that different (although they’re heading in the other direction).

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Against this context, the suicide rate among active Canadian military personnel is truly alarming. Data included in a 2021 Report on Suicide Mortality in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) showed that the three year moving average annual rate for suicides in all services of the CAF was 23.38 per 100,000 – around twice the national rate. Which, of course, is not to ignore the equally shocking suicide rates among military veterans.

This isn’t specific to Canada. All modern military communities have to worry about numbers like those. Officials in the Israel Defense Force – now hopefully emerging from their longest and, by some measures, costliest war ever – are struggling to address their own suicide crisis. But there’s a significant difference that’s probably worth exploring.

Through 2024, 21 active duty IDF soldiers took their own lives. This dark number has justifiably inspired a great deal of soul searching and, naturally (it being Israel), finger pointing. But the real surprise here is how low that number is.

It’s reasonable to estimate that there were 170,000 active duty soldiers in the IDF during 2024 and another 300,000 active reservists. If you count all of those together, the actual suicide rate is just 4.5 per 100,000 – which is less than half of the typical civilian suicide rate in Western countries!

Tragic. But hardly an epidemic. Those soldiers have all lost friends and faced battlefield conditions that I, for one, find impossible to even comprehend. And those 300,000 reservists? They’ve been torn away from their families, businesses, and normal lives for many months. Many have suffered devastating financial, social, and marital pressures. And still: we’re losing them at lower rates than most civilian populations!

Is there any lesson here that could help inform CAF policy?

One obvious difference is sense of purpose: IDF members are fighting for the very existence of their people. They all saw and felt the horrors of the October 7 massacres and know that there are countless thousands of adversaries who would be happy do it again in a heartbeat¹. And having a general population that overwhelmingly supports their mission can only help that sense.

But there are some other factors that could be worth noting:

• The IDF is unusual in that it subjects all potential conscripts to mandatory psychological screening – resulting in many exemptions.
• Small, stable units are intentionally kept together for years. In fact, units are often formed from groups who have known each other since their early school years. This cohesion also helps with post-service integration.
• Every IDF battalion has a dedicated officer trained in brief interventions and utilization rates are high.

Is there anything here that CAF officials could learn from?

From HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy’s Facebook Page