Department Of Veterans Affairs Women’s Health, Research on women Veterans’ health has expanded in recent years in its breadth and depth. Historically, the majority of research among women Veterans was focused on mental health conditions, chiefly in the areas of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the consequences of military exposures, including military sexual trauma. Now, efforts to build a broader and stronger evidence base across the lifespan have yielded new research on primary care and prevention, reproductive health, access/rural health, and the care for complex chronic conditions and the long term care needs of older women Veterans.
Deployment and post-deployment health research is now a major portion of the VA women’s health research portfolio, extending knowledge into the health and healthcare needs of women returning from Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND), as well as women still in active duty service.
New initiatives to accelerate women Veterans’ healthcare research and its impacts include the VA Women’s Health Research Network, the Women Veterans’ Healthcare CREATE, and the EMPOWER Quality Enhancement Research Initiative(QUERI).
The longitudinal study of long-term health outcomes of women’s services during the Vietnam Era has also been recently completed, with published findings starting to become available.
Women Veterans’ Research Highlights
- Access/Rural Health
- Complex Chronic Conditions/Long Term Care & Aging
- Deployment Health
- Primary Care/Prevention
- Reproductive Health
Resources
- Women’s Health Initiative Newsletter 2015-16(product of the Women’s Health Initiative)
- Medical Care Supplement: Women Veterans’ Health and Health Care, April 2015
- Women Veterans’ Health and Health Care Supplement. Journal of General Internal Medicine July 2013
- Women Veterans Health Care: Research Publications and Reports
- Women’s Health Issues (Special Collection on Women Veterans’ Health)
- Subscribe to the VA Women’s Health Research listserv.