Mil Med. 2013 Sep;178(9):966-9. doi: 10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00175.

The National Health Study for a New Generation of United States Veterans: methods for a large-scale study on the health of recent veterans.

Eber S¹, Barth S, Kang H, Mahan C, Dursa E, Schneiderman A.

Author information

1: Epidemiology Program (10P3A), Office of Public Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20420, USA.

Abstract

This article describes the methodology used in the "National Health Study for a New Generation of U.S. Veterans," a large-scale longitudinal study of the health of 30,000 Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) veterans, and 30,000 veterans who were not deployed to these conflicts. Veterans could participate by mail, online, or through a computer-assisted telephone interview. A medical records review was also conducted to validate responses to the survey. The response rate was 34.3%, with 20,563 surveys accepted. This study underscores the complexity of sampling and studying this population of recent veterans.