Behavioral Health of Minority Active Duty Service Members

Behavioral health disparities, in which socially disadvantaged groups such as racial/ethnic minorities, women, and sexual orientation minorities experience greater risk for certain mental health and substance use problems, are well documented in the general population. Less is known about whether similar behavioral health disparities exist among military service members. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) wanted to understand whether the behavioral health disparities seen in the civilian population also exist in the military, which is important to help DoD target its efforts to address the needs of service members and improve force readiness. To investigate this issue, RAND researchers examined the following: (1) whether minority group service members are more likely to experience mental health and substance use problems relative to their majority counterparts in the military and (2) whether minority-majority group differences in behavioral health within the military are similar or different from those in the civilian population. Any minority-majority group differences observed in the military were tested to see if they remain after accounting for sociocultural environmental factors (e.g., demographics, social support, harassment). Identifying where behavioral health disparities exist among military minority service groups and the factors that may be associated with observed disparities can help DoD better target efforts to address the behavioral health needs of its troops. Further, if minority group disparities are greater in the military than in the civilian population, this might signal the presence of factors specific to the military context that may exacerbate minority group service members' risk for behavioral health conditions. The study used data from the 2015 Health Related Behavior Survey (HRBS), the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the 2015 and 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and the 2015 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Behavioral health conditions included mental health (i.e., depression, suicide behaviors, posttraumatic stress disorder) and substance use (i.e., problematic alcohol use, tobacco use) outcomes.