Military sexual trauma is the VA’s term for sexual assault or harassment that occurred during military service. According to the Department of Defense (DoD), sexual assault is defined as intentional sexual contact, characterized by use of force, threats, intimidation, abuse of authority, or when the victim does not or cannot consent.
Every veteran who seeks VA healthcare is screened for military sexual trauma. Among those screened, 1 in 3 female veterans and 1 in 50 male veterans disclose an MST experience, according to the VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.
MST is the leading cause of PTSD among female veterans, and its effects reach across mental health, physical health, careers, and the disability claims process. The data below sets out what military sexual trauma statistics look like today, drawn from VA records, scientific research, DoD reports, and recent VA Inspector General audits.
Most MST Cases Are Never Reported Officially
In FY2023, the roughly 7,300 reports received by the Department of Defense represented only about 1 in 4 of the 29,000 service members who experienced unwanted sexual contact that year. Among those who did report, 31% of men and 28% of women experienced retaliation, and 56% of retaliation reports alleged that retaliators were in the reporter’s chain of command. For these reasons, every statistic below counts only a fraction of the actual affected population.
66% of women believe the military will not protect their privacy, 60% believe it will not ensure their safety, and 47% cited fear of negative consequences from co-workers as a reason for staying silent.
How Widespread MST Really Is
A 2022 meta-analysis by Galovski and colleagues synthesizing military and veteran populations found rates of approximately 38% among women and 4% among men when both assault and harassment are counted, an overall rate of about 16% across the combined population.
Military sexual trauma prevalence runs highest among younger veterans: 22.8% of those aged 18–29 screen positive, compared to 4.5% of those 60 and older.
What DoD Surveys Show
Military sexual trauma prevalence is measured every two years through the Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Military Members. The most recent figures come from the 2023 WGR survey: 6.8% of active-duty women and 1.3% of active-duty men experienced unwanted sexual contact, totaling an estimated 29,000 service members (15,000 women and 14,000 men).
That was the first decline in nearly a decade, down from 8.4% of women and 1.5% of men in FY2021. Sexual harassment ran at 23% of active-duty women and 4% of active-duty men in the same survey.
The FY2024 DoD Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, released in May 2025, recorded a slight increase in sexual harassment complaints (3,014, from 2,980 in FY2023), as well as 6,973 reports of sexual assault from service members. Court-martial cases ended in conviction 74% of the time, up two points from FY2023.
Service members who reported sexual assault showed higher separation rates, more demotions, more missed promotions, and more security-clearance actions than peers who did not report.
The Mental Health Toll: PTSD, Substance Abuse, and Suicide
The magnitude of the impact separates MST from virtually every other PTSD risk factor in veteran health research. A 2024 European Journal of Psychotraumatology editorial argues that MST should be classified as a distinctive traumatic stressor, in part because veterans who experienced MST report poorer mental health, physical health, and social satisfaction than civilians who survived sexual assault outside the military.
PTSD
A 2010 VA study of 125,729 primary care and mental health patients found that female veterans with MST history were nine times more likely to develop PTSD than those without. MST surpasses combat exposure as the strongest predictor of PTSD severity among female veterans, a finding that holds even when controlling for combat deployment history.
Severity matters as much as prevalence. Among veterans who receive VA service connection for MST-related PTSD, 67% are rated at 70% or higher. A 70% rating reflects severe functional impairment across work, school, family relations, judgment, thinking, and mood. Most MST-related PTSD is occupationally and socially disabling.
Suicide Risk
Kimerling et al.’s 2016 study of VA healthcare records for 6.35 million veterans (FY2007–FY2011) found that women with MST histories face a 127% higher suicide risk and men face a 69% higher suicide risk compared to veterans without reported MST.
A separate 2019 study of 108 MST survivors found that 40.7% had attempted suicide following the trauma.
Related Substance Use Disorders
A 2019 study of 435,690 OEF/OIF veterans with five-year VA follow-up found MST associated with 2.33 times higher odds of alcohol use disorder and 2.65 times higher odds of drug use disorder for women.
For men, MST was associated with 1.63 times higher alcohol abuse odds and 2.26 times higher drug use disorder odds. Women veterans with MST showed 10.2% AUD prevalence versus 4.7% without MST, and 11.0% DUD prevalence versus 4.5% without. Among men with MST, AUD prevalence was 18.2% versus 12.5%.
How Men Are Affected by MST
Approximately 1 in 50 male veterans screen positive for MST through VA universal screening and the 2022 Galovski meta-analysis found about 4% of men in military and veteran populations report MST when both harassment and assault are measured.
Because men constitute the vast majority of service members, this means that nearly 40% of the veterans who disclose MST to the VA are men. But military sexual trauma in men is severely underreported and often overlooked.
DoD’s statistics shows men report at consistently lower rates than women, with most male survivors never disclosing through official channels. Primary barriers include fear of social stigma, fear of having one’s sexual identity questioned, and concern about career retaliation. Military culture intensifies all three, creating a reporting environment particularly hostile to male MST victims.
Higher rates of other-than-honorable discharge linked to MST-related behavioral issues can affect VA eligibility, and male veterans with MST use VA mental health services at lower rates than female veterans with MST.
VA Disability Statistics for MST: Approvals, Denials, and Errors
In FY2024, the VA received more than 57,400 MST-related claims, an 18% increase over FY2023, and granted 163,644 new mental health ratings, a 16.4% year-over-year increase.
Grant rates for MST-related PTSD improved from 50% in 2015 to 72% in 2021. Overall approval exceeded 60% in FY2023 and reached 63% in FY2024, with the VA granting 65% of women’s MST claims and 56% of men’s.
A 2024 Yale School of Medicine study of 31,803 MST PTSD claims filed between October 2017 and May 2022 found MST claimants were 2.05 times more likely to be denied service connection than combat PTSD claimants. The MST denial rate was 27.6% versus 18.2% for combat PTSD, with the most common denial reasons being “no current diagnosis” (52.9%) and “not incurred in service” (44.6%).
Gender and Racial Disparities
Within the same Yale dataset, male MST claimants faced a 36.6% denial rate versus 25.4% for women, with men facing 1.78 times higher denial odds. Black veterans had 1.39 times higher denial odds than white veterans, a racial disparity layered on top of the baseline MST-versus-combat gap.
Processing Errors
A 2018 VA Inspector General report found approximately 1 in 3 MST-related PTSD claims were initially processed incorrectly: 28% of cases warranting a medical exam did not receive one, 13% had inadequate evidence-gathering, and 10% of decisions relied on contradictory medical opinions. A 2021 follow-up found the VA had not implemented several corrective recommendations.
By FY2024, the VA OIG found error rates exceeding 50% in completed MST claims reviewed between October 2023 and January 2024 at the New York Regional Office MST Operations Center. Processor turnover at that center reached nearly 25% in FY2024, compared to less than 10% for processors handling other claim types. Even after a two-signature review process designed to catch errors, roughly one-third of double-signed denials still contained errors. The OIG flagged recurring failures including missing records, insufficient medical opinions, and failure to order required medical exams.
Approval rates have improved by roughly 22 percentage points over a decade. But the persistent structural errors, documented across 2018, 2021, and 2025 audits, mean MST claimants continue to face a system that disadvantages them relative to other PTSD categories.
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