Jeanne S. Ringel

This book summarizes key findings and recommendations from "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery" (Tanielian and Jaycox [Eds.], MG-720-CCF, 2008), a comprehensive study of the post-deployment health-related needs associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury among veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom.

To analyze the effects of prevention and treatment programs on child welfare outcomes, RAND researchers built a quantitative model simulating how children enter and flow through the nation's child welfare system. They then projected how different policy options (prevention services, family preservation efforts, and kinship care efforts) would affect a child's pathway through the system, costs, and early adulthood outcomes.

This analysis determines how particular patient and facility characteristics influence Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) system allocations to the Department of Veterans Affairs regional service networks and simplifies and refines the models created in earlier RAND research to reflect policy changes and more recent data. The Veterans Health Administration asked RAND to conduct a quantitative analysis of the Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) system, which allocates the congressionally appropriated medical care budget to the Veterans Integrated Service Networks. The study determines how particular patient and facility characteristics influence allocations to the service networks and simplifies and refines the models created in earlier RAND research to reflect policy changes and more recent data.

There is concern that schools and districts will be unable to attract and retain enough qualified school administrators. The authors analyse data on school administrators' careers and the factors influencing decisions to enter these careers. They find no national crisis but do find three primary areas of concern: state and local variation in financial rewards, barriers to entry into the field, and the number of administrators nearing retirement.

Provides a framework for understanding the effects of changes in the Military Health System benefit structure on the demand for health care services paid for by the DoD. This report reviews the economic literature on the elasticity of demand for health care to provide a framework for understanding the effects of changes in the Military Health System benefit structure on the demand for health care services paid for by the DoD. Despite the wide variety of empirical methods and data sources used in the literature, the demand for health care is consistently found to be price inelastic, with values centering around -0.17. The demand for some specific medical services such as preventive care or pharmacy, however, is found to be more price sensitive with values around -0.30. Changes in the price of health care affect health plan enrollment choices as well as the demand for services. Studies show that consumers may be induced to switch between insurance plans in response to changes in their relative prices. The report concludes with a discussion of the potential effects of four aspects of the FY2001 National Defense Authorization Act. (author)