Leading the Nation in Women’s Health: The Important Role of Research

Abstract

Article history: Received 20 April 2011; Accepted 20 April 2011 Over the past two decades, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has supported numerous initiatives to remedy gaps in services available to women veterans. Finding deficits in the VHA’ sw omen’s health care delivery in the early 1990s, reports from the U.S. Government Accounting Office spurred the initial move to upgrade the care provided to women veterans. Unfortunately, much of the country continued to marginalize women’s services in VHA, providing only a “pap” clinic and part-time (and often “collateral duty”) Women Veteran Coordinators to meet all of the needs of women veterans. Nonetheless, there were pockets of true excellence, facilities that engaged in a process of intensive development of comprehensive women’ sh ealth centers (BeanMayberry et al., 2007; Yano, Goldzeig, 2006). In 2008, my office, which oversees delivery of VA health care to women veterans nationally, launched an initiative to take this early work to the next level, transforming VA’s women’s health delivery system into an ational leader in women’s health. Our goal is to provide “the best care anywhere” for women veterans (Longman, 2005). A solid foundation of research is essential to this vision. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has already produced an impressive body of work that has helped to guide changes in strategies for the provision of care for women veterans (BeanMayberry, et al., 2010; Goldzweig, Balekian, Rolon, Tano, & Shekelle, 2006). However, still more research is needed; this current Special Issue of Women’s Health Issues takes another important step forward in filling remaining gaps, while also identifying new areas of research needing attention. As more and more women are entering and serving in military roles, many of which of which expose them to combat, we are challenged to understand and treat the effects of military service on women’s lives. Examining all of the possible effects of military service includes, of course, not only careful assessment of negative effects and vulnerabilities, but also of positive outcomes based on hard-won opportunities to serve their country, strengths, and resilience, and other factors that may have had less attention overall. Nationally, our population of women veterans is rapidly expanding, from the group of pioneering womenwho comprised only 3.5% of the military during World War II, to 4% during the Vietnam Era, and to approximately 11% in 1991, during Gulf War I. Today, women comprise 15% of active duty military and 17% of the National Guard and Reserve forces (Women’s Research and Education Institute, 2008). Thus, we need to plan for the many women “in the pipeline” who will be seeking health care from the VA in the next few years and beyond. The characteristics of the women veteran population and subpopulations (e.g., by period of service or era, among racial-ethnic minorities, education, marital status) are changing as well, requiring ongoing research to support our strategic planning and readiness in the face of their long-term preventive, reproductive, chronic