Sarah O. Meadows

This study compares the behavioral health of racial/ethnic minority, women, and sexual minority service members to their majority group peers and examines minority-majority group differences in the military versus civilian population. Understanding whether minority group service members experience differences in behavioral health can assist the Department of Defense in targeting its efforts to improve force readiness.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, approximately one-third of military service members experience a permanent change of station (PCS) move every year. The authors used a mixed-methods approach to compile a list of PCS-related family disruptions and to understand what programs exist to address these disruptions.

RAND researchers report key findings from the 2015 Health Related Behaviors Survey of active-duty service members. The report details the survey's methodology and sample demographics, as well as policy implications. The results are intended to supplement data already collected by the Department of Defense and to inform policy initiatives to help improve the readiness, health, and well-being of the force.

This report is one of a series designed to support Air Force leaders in promoting resilience among its Airmen, civilian employees, and Air Force families. It identifies key environmental stressors experienced by Airmen and examines key resilience factors in the domain of environmental fitness, focusing specifically on prevention and protective measures.

This report is one of a series designed to support Air Force leaders in promoting resilience among its Airmen, civilian employees, and Air Force families. It examines the relationship between medical fitness and resilience, using key constructs found in the scientific literature, which address preventive care, the presence and management of injuries and chronic conditions, and facilitators and barriers to access of appropriate health care.

The authors compare the Department of Defense's health readiness assessments against their stated objectives and identify potential opportunities for improvement and increased efficiencies.

The UNITE Initiative aims to promote readiness and resilience in the Air Force through events that focus on unit cohesion. The authors describe the results of their evaluation of UNITE and the program's association with unit cohesion, drawing on interviews with UNITE representatives and post-event surveys completed by airmen participants.

In 2009, the RAND Corporation launched the Deployment Life Study, a longitudinal study of military families across a deployment cycle. This culminating report reviews the study design and data collection procedures, then presents results from analyses of the data collected from some 2,700 military families, focusing on marital relationships, family environment, psychological and behavioral health, child well-being, and military integration.

This final report in a series is designed to help the Air Force promote mental and physical resilience among its Airmen, civilian employees, and Air Force families and thus improve overall health and well-being. The report reviews the concepts and measures of resilience, resilience factors, hardiness and flourishing. It highlights the eight fitness domain companion reports and types of Air Force data that could be used to track resilience.

The Deployment Life Study was designed to provide a deeper understanding of military family readiness and its sources. This report describes the theoretical model that informed the study design, the content of the baseline assessment, the design and procedures associated with data collection, sampling and recruiting procedures, and the baseline sample of military families.

To help Air Force Services tailor support for Airmen and families, researchers applied established social indicators and neighborhood studies methodologies to identify areas that may need more-targeted Air Force resources. This report shows whether and how base-area characteristics are associated with individual-level Airman outcomes across several domains, including health and well-being, social cohesion, and ratings of neighborhood resources.