Improving Access to Behavioral Health Care for Remote Service Members and Their Families

The invisible wounds of war—posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, traumatic brain injury, and
drug and alcohol problems—are prevalent among today’s warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Deployed service members’ families are bearing the effects of the conflicts, too. Their children, for example, have demonstrated higher rates of anxiety and more emotional difficulties and problems at school than other children of the same age. And family caretakers of young post-9/11 veterans—more than 1 million to date—experience family tension and problems at work at a greater rate than their nonmilitary caretaking peers.