OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate outcomes of the Veterans Administration (VA) Afghan and Iraq Post-Deployment Screen for mental health symptoms. METHODS Veterans Administration clinicians were encouraged to refer Iraq or Afghanistan veterans who screened positive for posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, or high-risk alcohol use to a VA mental health clinic. Multivariate methods were use...

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world, claiming six million lives each year. Although smoking prevalence is decreasing in high-income countries, many low- and middle-income countries, particularly fragile and post-conflict nations such as Iraq, are still seeing prevalence rates rising. With the evidence of higher rates of nicotine dependence in conflict and post-conflic...

OBJECTIVE Studies of soldiers from prior wars conducted many years after combat have shown associations between combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical health problems. The current Iraq war has posed a considerable PTSD risk, but the association with physical health has not been well studied. METHOD The authors studied 2,863 soldiers using standardized self-administer...

Background: Iraqi political prisoners were subjected to regular physical and psychological torture. Both physical and psychological torture methods were associated with increased PTSD symptoms, especially when combined. In Iraq, several articles were published on PTSD, but no study was focused on former political prisoners or torture victims. Therefore, this study was carried out to estimate ra...

814 When the Bush Administration was preparing to invade Iraq in March 2003, many archaeologists had a personal stake in trying to avert the conflict. They feared for the safety of their Iraqi colleagues and worried about the impact of modern warfare on the innumerable ancient sites that dot Mesopotamia’s landscape. The subsequent looting 1 year ago of cultural institutions such as the Iraq Mus...

BACKGROUND Recently, proposals have been made to improve mental health care for U.K. military veterans. Combat stress (CS), a veteran's charity, has provided mental health services for veterans since 1919. Since 2003, service users have included veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts; however, their pattern of help-seeking has not been evaluated. AIMS To describe the characteristics...

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is reported to be caused by traumatic events that are outside the range of usual human experience including (but not limited to) military combat, violent personal assault, being kidnapped or taken hostage and terrorist attacks. Initial data suggests that at least 1 out of 6 Iraq War veterans are exhibiting symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD. Virtual R...

BACKGROUND To assess any health consequences of the anthrax vaccination programme in UK Armed Forces deployed to Iraq. METHODS Data were collected from two samples simultaneously. The first was 5302 randomly selected UK service personnel. The second was 607 service personnel involved in a longitudinal study, where pre-vaccination health had previously been collected. Both samples were offered...

Counts of military deaths in Iraq are well publicized, but deaths alone do not indicate the risk for an individual. In order to assess the extent of individual risk, the number of deaths must be compared to the number of individuals exposed to the risk of death. These risks may vary from person to person depending on such factors as one’s branch of service, rank, age, sex, race and ethnicity. I...

OBJECTIVE High rates of mental health concerns have been documented in US Army soldiers deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The goal of this study was to compare the postdeployment mental health screening results of US Army soldiers with 1 or 2 deployments to Iraq. METHOD Routine mental health screening data collected from September 7, 2005, to April 27, 2007, in the Soldier Welln...