Study to focus on soldiers in Iraq

Researchers from the Institute for Social Research (ISR) soon will begin interviewing randomly selected samples of 1,200 U.S. Army women and men stationed in Iraq and other sites around the world.

The goal of the new study is to assess how deployment is affecting the mental, emotional and physical health of male and female soldiers. The study starts in April.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, through the TriService Nursing Research Program, the study will provide the most comprehensive look to date at stress among Army soldiers. It will assess how the impact of wartime deployment may differ among men and women, and how the unique stresses of these operations may affect their willingness to re-enlist.

"About half of our sample will include soldiers deployed in Iraq and other theaters of war," says Penny Pierce, a retired colonel in the Air Force Reserve program who is also an associate professor in the School of Nursing and a faculty associate at the ISR. Pierce is collaborating on the project with Amiram Vinokur, ISR research professor. "We will be looking at how service location and status—whether active, reserve or members of the guard—are related to the levels of stress individuals experience. We will also be examining how marital and parenthood status affect the experience of stress."

The researchers hope to compare the retention results from this study with a similar study they now are conducting with Air Force men and women, and also compare the findings with results of a 1992 study they conducted. That study, which focused on Gulf War women, showed that those who served in the theater of war were more likely to stay in the military than those who served elsewhere.

"The situation today could be very different," Pierce says. "The Gulf War was a short, relatively popular war that brought about a decisive victory, compared to the conflict today."

Pierce and Vinokur hope that their research will help to find out if there are preventable risks associated with specific military duties, type of deployment, occupational and family stress, or a combination of these factors.

"The results of this work will inform manpower planners, policy-makers and family readiness programs how to shape strategies and resources that will support service members and their families," Pierce says.

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