A recent study on the long-term health effects of thousands of service members found that deployed service members who are exposed to combat have increased risks for smoking, heavy drinking and PTSD symptoms

When a landmark Defense Department-sponsored health study was launched six years ago, one of its goals was to evaluate the impact of future deployments on long-term health. The investigators did not know how timely the project would be...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13, 2008 - Defense Department officials are assessing ways to better prepare servicemembers, particularly members of the reserve and National Guard, for the stresses of combat so they're better able to avoid alcohol-related problems when they return home, defense officials said today ...

The Defense Department launched a survey to assess the health and well-being of military-connected youth and their families. SOAR is embedded within the larger DOD Millennium Cohort Study of active-duty, reserve and National Guard service members and veterans, which began in 2001. The approximately 40,000 service members and veterans enrolled in MCS who have adolescent children will receive a packet in the mail inviting them, their child and the other parent, if applicable, to fill out individual online surveys.

Recent research from the Millennium Cohort Study found that military personnel who deployed with combat experiences were more likely to report back pain after deployment than service members who deployed without combat experience. Study findings were recently published in the November issue of Spine.

A new partnership between DoD and VA medical researchers achieves a milestone with its first joint publication, which examines post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in veteran and active duty populations. The study will be published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, June 2017.

A newly published study finds that PTSD symptoms at baseline, but not other mental health symptoms, are significantly associated with an increased risk of developing diabetes among military service members. Increases in the prevalence of PTSD among the military population could have an impact on rates of physical disorders, such as diabetes, in the coming years.

Service members who were currently deployed or had returned from a deployment had significantly shorter adjusted sleep duration and increased adjusted odds of reporting trouble sleeping compared to those who had not deployed.

Service members with one or more mental health disorders prior to deployment were two- and-a-half times more likely to screen positive for PTSD post-deployment compared to those with no mental health disorders, after controlling for pre-deployment PTSD, physical injury severity and a host of other risk factors.

Participants who engaged in less physical activity were more likely to screen positive for PTSD. Those who reported at least 20 minutes of vigorous activity twice a week had significantly reduced odds for new-onset and persistent PTSD symptoms.