AFRL researcher helps lead largest military health study

  • Published
  • By John Schutte
  • Human Effectiveness Directorate
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  More than 300,000 active duty and retired service men and women will receive a valuable document soon--not of financial worth but which could be a key to optimized performance and improved health and longevity for the nation's military personnel. 

The Millennium Cohort Study survey form will ask each person to voluntarily respond to about 24 pages of personal and health-related questions. In epidemiology--the study of health and disease in populations--a cohort study tracks a group of subjects for an extended interval to determine the individuals' long-range health outcomes. 

In this case, the Department of Defense--in response to a 1999 U. S. Congressional request--wants to determine if military deployment, military occupations and general military service results in higher risk of chronic illness among military personnel and veterans. 

In the largest military cohort study ever, at least 140,000 Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines will participate in the 21-year study that began in 2001 and ends in 2022. 

Colonel Timothy S. Wells, a veterinarian and chief of epidemiological sciences for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate, Biosciences and Protection Division (HEP), was named a co-investigator on the joint-service study while stationed at the Naval Health Research Center, which is conducting the study. He also replaced Colonel James R. Riddle, former HEP division chief and a founding investigator of the study, as the group's active-duty Air Force representative.
 
A current DoD emphasis on optimizing human performance makes the Millennium Cohort Study particularly relevant now, Col. Wells believes. 

"When you consider human effectiveness and human performance optimization, you won't find any studies of this magnitude with self-reported data," said Col. Wells, who has a doctorate degree in epidemiology. "So you can look at things like alcohol use, smoking, and self-reported battlefield exposures, and follow the subjects into their civilian lives, too. So even though they quit wearing the uniform we want to keep surveying them every three years, and this is basically the first study to do that." 

The study "has a lot to do with how people are functioning, what type of exposures they have, and what kind of health behaviors affect their functioning in the long term," Col. Wells continued. "So I think it really has a chance, especially in the areas of mental health and chronic diseases, to have some major breakthroughs in our understanding of these conditions." 

Researchers recruited a total of 100,000 participants in 2001 and 2004 surveys; now more than 200,000 questionnaires are going to new prospects with a goal of enrolling at least another 48,500 volunteers, while existing participants are resurveyed. 

"This should be the last time we actually recruit individuals," Wells explained. "Then we'll just resurvey everyone every three years until 2022." 

The questions remain basically the same for each wave of surveys, although researchers may tweak them to reflect certain areas of emphasis or to make improvements. Participants may complete either a paper or online questionnaire, Col. Wells said. 

The survey inquires about marital status, disease and illness, physical and social functioning, mental health, female reproductive health, stress, alcohol and smoking, divorce, and violence, including questions added this year on the incidence of war-related exposures. 

"The main emphasis is how military service affects your health in the long term and we are paying particular attention to possible health effects associated with deployment," Wells said. "There is concern about traumatic brain injury now because of Iraq and Afghanistan and that's why we wanted to include some better battlefield exposure questions." 

Questionnaires for 2007 will be distributed sometime in April or May, Colonel Wells said. 

Should the survey results indicate that military service has a detrimental effect on overall long-term health, researchers hope to then be able to develop new technology or methods to counteract or prevent those effects.