The percentage of U.S. servicemembers who have family responsibilities, according to a recently published article in the journal Pediatrics -- Health and Mental Health Needs of Children in US Military Families. According to the article, "Up to 2 million US children have been exposed to a wartime deployment of a loved one in the past 10 years." The article is intended as a clinical report for all pediatricians, civilian and military.
The increase in the hospitalization rate for military members between 2002 and 2006 versus the increase between 2006 and 2012, according to an editorial in the April issue of the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, a publication of the Armed Forces Surveillance Center. Once again it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words. The editorial -- Signature Scars of the Long War -- contains this dramatic graph.
The amount that would be saved in "social costs" (lost productivity, mental health treatment, and suicides) over a two year period following "implementation of evidence-based treatments" for PTSD and depression, according to a recent journal article -- Challenges and Successes in Dissemination of Evidence-Based Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress: Lessons Learned From Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD. According to the article, which appeared in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, that figure represents a reduction of roughly 15% in the total social costs of PTSD and depression over a two-year period in veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calculated by health economists at approximately $950 million.
The number of official "reports of sexual assault involving Service members" in FY 2012, according to the annual report recently related by the Department of Defense (DoD) Sexual Assault and Prevention Office (SAPRO). This represents an increase of 6% over the 3,192 sexual assaults reported in FY 2011.
According to a recent Washington Post story -- Motor vehicle crashes: A little-known risk to returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan -- veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, after they leave active service, have a 75% higher rate of fatal motor vehicle accidents than civilians.