Active Component

Objective: Commonly held attitudes concerning the effects of parental wartime deployment on children have usually been guided by stereotype, rather than scientific data.

In this study, the authors compared children and families with and without a deployed Service member-parent prior to and during Operation Desert Storm in an effort to determine the effects of Operation Desert Storm on military children and their parents.

Although substance abuse has consistently been linked to child maltreatment, no study to date has described the extent of substance abuse among child maltreatment offenders within the military. Analysis of U.S.

Substance abuse has been cited as a potential risk factor for child maltreatment.

This study examined child maltreatment perpetration among 99,697 active-duty U.S. Air Force parents who completed a combat deployment. Using the deploying parent as the unit of analysis, we analyzed whether child maltreatment rates increased postdeployement relative to predeployment.

Increased stress, including during deployment, may put parents at greater risk for perpetrating child maltreatment. Rates of child maltreatment, as well as type and severity of maltreatment, were compared pre- and post-deployment among Active Duty U.S. Air Force parents.

Objective: To conduct the first population-based study comparing child maltreatment rates perpetrated by civilian parents in military families before, during, and after combat-related deployments.

Child maltreatment is a serious concern for families, and it is important to understand factors that may influence maltreatment rates. Rates of child maltreatment by a civilian parent in a military family were compared before, during, and after deployment.

Objective: One of the most common, yet most difficult to detect injuries sustained by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Left untreated, mTBI can negatively impact soldiers' postdeployment adjustment.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is often an invisible and hard-to-diagnosis disorder that can have large impacts on Service members’ functioning.