Summary: PTSD Awareness Month 2025 takes place during the month of June. It’s a month to put post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the public spotlight, learn about PTSD, help reduce stigma around PTSD, and help people with PTSD find the support they need.
Key Points:
- PTSD is associated with combat veterans and people who live through extreme events like natural disasters – but that’s not the whole story.
- Anyone who lives through a traumatic event can develop PTSD – from childhood adversity, to serious accidents, to major illness and injury to self or a loved one, to experiencing or witnessing violence.
- Effective treatment for PTSD is available, and can help people with PTSD manage symptoms and live full and productive lives
Everyone can participate in PTSD Awareness Month 2025: scroll down to learn how.
June is PTSD Awareness Month 2025
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Joe Biel of the 82nd Airborne Division served two combat tours in Iraq and developed PTSD upon his return home. In 2007, as a result of the symptoms of PTSD, Sergeant Beal took his own life. Moved by this tragedy, Senator Ken Conrad of North Dakota established June 27th – Sgt. Beal’s birthday – as National PTSD Awareness Day in 2010. Then, in 2014, the full U.S. Senate recognized the importance of PTSD awareness, and established June as National PTSD Awareness Month.
For the past 15 years, mental health professionals, veteran’s advocates, and trauma survivors have mobilized during the month of June to raise awareness about PTSD. This year, experts at The National Center for PTSD prioritize treatment awareness. Here’s how they want us to think of PTSD Awareness Month 2025:
“Even though PTSD treatments work, most people who have PTSD don’t get the help they need. Everyone with PTSD – whether they are veterans or civilian survivors of sexual assault, serious accidents, natural disasters, or other traumatic events – needs to know that effective treatments can reduce symptoms and lead to a better quality of life.”
Treatment for PTSD is essential. The consequences of untreated PTSD include:
- Depression
- Aggression
- Anger
- Anger regulation problems
- Isolation
- Suicidality
- Disordered/excess/misuse of substances
- Relationship problems
- Impaired work performance/academic achievement
- Risk-taking
In addition, an experience of trauma and/or presence of PTSD is associated with increased risk of physical comorbidities, including, but not limited to:
- Neurochemical changes in the brain
- Musculoskeletal problems/disorders
- Cardiovascular problems/disorders
- Gastrointestinal problems/disorders
We’ll share information on how you can participate in PTSD Awareness Month 2025. First, let’s look at the latest prevalence rates of PTSD in the U.S., so we understand exactly who we’re helping raise awareness for – and how many people are counting on our help this month.
PTSD Prevalence: Facts and Figures
The following statistics are publicly available at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) website on their dedicated PTSD pages here and here. Those pages include prevalence data on PTSD in the general population, as well as data specific for veterans of the armed services. Here are the highlights, most relevant to understanding the need for PTSD Awareness Month 2025.
Prevalence of PTSD in the U.S.
Adults 18+:
- Past year PTSD diagnosis: 13 million people, 5% of adult population
- Ever diagnosed with PTSD: 20 million, 6% of adult population
- Ever diagnosed with PTSD:
- Women: 8%
- Men: 4%
Among Veterans:
- Ever diagnosed with PTSD: 7%
- Ever diagnosed with PTSD:
- Women: 13%
- Men: 6%
By Service Era:
- Iraq I (Persian Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm):
- Past year: 14%
- Lifetime: 21%
- Iraqi II & III (Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom):
- Past year: 15%
- Lifetime: 29%
- Vietnam (among living veterans):
- Past year: 5%
- Lifetime: 10%
- WWII and Korea (among living veterans):
- Past year: 2%
- Lifetime: 3%
Those millions of U.S. citizens – veterans and civilians alike – are they why behind PTSD Awareness Month 2025.
How You Can Participate
The organizers at the National Center for PTSD encourage anyone interested to join the PTSD advocacy movement by taking the following three steps:
- Learn the Basics.
- PTSD can affect everyone: children, adolescents, adults, male, or female.
- Symptoms can be very disruptive, and impair quality of life
- Millions of people in the U.S. have PTSD, figures above
- Raise Awareness.
- Share Veteran’s stories from AboutFace
- Watch this video from the Veteran’s Administration (VA)
- Watch these videos on important PTSD topics
- Advocate for Treatment.
- Spread the news that treatment works
- Therapy, medication, lifestyle changes, and complementary supports – i.e. yoga, meditation, and others – can reduce PTSD symptoms
- People with PTSD can manage symptoms and live full, productive lives
According to a report published by the VA in 2023 called Understanding PTSD and PTSD Treatment, the two most important things people with PTSD need to know are that they are not alone and that treatment works.
Knowing you’re not alone means people with PTSD can connect with other people with PTSD and learn from their experiences. When another person has faced the same – or similar – challenges and navigated them successfully, they serve as an example of what can happen when you take action and seek help and support.
Knowing treatment works means people with PTSD can choose therapy, medication, or lifestyle changes backed by evidence, that have worked for millions of people before. That awareness can change everything, and offer a person with severe, disruptive symptoms hope for the future, hope for recovery, and confidence that they can create positive change and live the life they choose, rather than one dominated by the symptoms of PTSD.
