The postwar hospitalization experience of Gulf War veterans participating in U.S. health registries.
In response to concerns that Gulf War veterans were experiencing increased morbidity resulting from wartime exposures in the Gulf War, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated clinical registries to provide systematic health evaluations for self-referred Gulf War veterans. The authors used Cox's proportional hazard modeling with data from all DoD hospitals to estimate the probability of hospitalization resulting from any cause, resulting from diagnosis in a major diagnostic category, and resulting from a specific diagnosis of interest. After adjusting for other risk factors, registry participants were 1.43 times more likely to have a postwar hospitalization than registry nonparticipants (95% confidence interval, 1.40-1.46). These findings support the hypothesis that registry participants were more likely to experience postwar morbidity than veterans who chose not to enroll in the health registries.
Smith
Tyler C
TC
Department of Defense Center for Deployment Health Research at the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA 92186-5122, USA. Smith@nhrc.navy.mil
Jimenez
Dinice L
DL
Smith
Besa
B
Gray
Gregory C
GC
Hooper
Tomoko I
TI
Gackstetter
Gary D
GD
Heller
Jack M
JM
Dalager
Nancy A
NA
Kang
Han K
HK
Hyams
Kenneth C
KC
Ryan
Margaret A K
MA
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008877:Middle East; D009017:Morbidity; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014728:Veterans / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014857:Warfare