Abstract
Over the past decade, the research and policy institute sector has been designing and conducting large-scale studies to inform evidence-based policy decision-making to effectively meet the needs of military families and maintain overall force readiness. Several studies have been initiated and much has been learned about the changing composition of the force and the impact of deployment on military families; however, several gaps in our knowledge base remain. At the same time, several lessons have been learned about the challenges associated with studying military families. Taken together, these lessons and remaining gaps can help inform a more strategic research agenda on military families in the future. This chapter provides several recommendations toward this end; however, in doing so, it also highlights the importance of initiating these recommendations now rather than waiting for future deployments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Each of the services was conducting studies to understand how their families were faring, in addition to various defense agencies and different parts of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (e.g., Reserve Affairs, Military Community and Family Policy, Health Affairs).
References
Allen, M. (2003, August 9). Bush cites ‘progress’ being made in Iraq; white house report on ‘successes’ in iraq counters criticism of postwar plan. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/409508382?accountid=25333.
Chandra, A., Lara-Cinisomo, S., Jaycox, L. H., Tanielian, T., Burns, R. M., Ruder, T., & Han, B. (2010). Children on the Homefront: The experience of children from military families. Pediatrics, 125, 16–25.
Chandra, A., Lara-Cinisomo, S., Jaycox, L. H., Tanielian, T., Han, B., Burns, R. M., & Ruder, T. (2011). Views from the Homefront. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Cigrang, J. A., Talcott, G. W., Tatum, J., Baker, M., Cassidy, D., Sonnek, S., et al. (2014). Intimate partner communication from the war zone: A prospective study of relationship functioning, communication frequency, and combat effectiveness. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 40, 332–343.
Crum-Cianflone, N. F., Fairbank, J. A., Marmar, C. R., & Schlenger, W. (2014). The Millennium Cohort Family Study: A prospective evaluation of the health and well-being of military service members and their families. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 23, 320–330.
Davis, L. E., Polich, J. M., Hix, W. M., Greenberg, M. D., & Brady, S. (2005). Stretched Thin: Army Forces for Sustained Operations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Defense Manpower Data Center (2012) Survey of Active Duty Spouses: Tabulations of Responses. Alexandria, VA Available at: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA609606
DMDC (2015). Military Family Life Project: Active Duty Spouse Study Longitudinal Analysis 2010–2012 Project Report. Alexandria VA available at: http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/MFLPLongitudinal-Analyses-Report.pdf
Engel, C. C., Hyams, K. C., & Scott, K. (2006). Managing future Gulf War Syndromes: International lessons and new models of care. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 36, 707–720.
Freed, M. C., Novak, L. A., Kilgore, W. D. S., Rauch, S. A. M., Koehlmoos, A. Ginsberg, J. P., et al. (2015, under review). IRB and Research Regulatory Delays within the Military Healthcare Setting: Do They Really Matter? And If so, Why and for Whom? The American Journal of Bioethics.
Glod, M. (2008, July 17). Coping with their parents’ war; multiple deployments compound strain for children of service members. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/410234597?accountid=25333.
IOM. (2013). Returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan: Assessment of readjustment needs of veterans, service members, and their families. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Karney, B. R., & Crown, J. S. (2010). Does deployment keep military marriages together or break them apart? Evidence from Afghanistan and Iraq. In S. M. Wadsworth & D. Riggs (Eds.), Risk and resilience in U.S. Military Families. New York: Springer.
Loeb, V. (2003, December 28). Pace of casualties in Iraq has risen; counterinsurgency costlier than combat. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/409528206?accountid=25333.
McCarroll, J. E., Ursano, R. J., Liu, X., Thayer, L. E., Newby, J. H., Norwood, A. E., & Fullerton, C. S. (2010). Deployment and the probability of spousal aggression by U.S. Army Soldiers. Military Medicine, 175, 352–356.
McIntyre, J. (2005, June 8). War takes toll on military marriages. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/08/military.marriages/.
Ross, S. M. (2010). Fighting two protracted wars. In S. Carlton-Ford & M. G. Ender (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of war and society: Iraq and Afghanistan (pp. 9–19). New York: Routledge.
SteelFisher, G. K., Zaslavsky, A. M., & Blendon, R. J. (2008). Health-related impact of deployment extensions on spouses of active duty army personnel. Military Medicine, 173, 221–229.
Tanielian, T., Karney, B. R., Chandra, A., Meadows, S. O., & Deployment Life Study Team. (2014). The deployment life study: Methodological overview and baseline sample description. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation (RR-209). Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR209.html.
Trail, T. E., Meadows, S. O., Miles, J. N., & Karney, B. R. (2015). Patterns of vulnerabilities and resources in U.S. military families. Journal of Family Issues.
Weinick, R. M., Beckjord, E. B., Farmer, C. M., Martin, L. T., Gillen, E. M., Acosta, J. D., et al. (2011). Programs addressing psychological health and traumatic brain injury among U.S. military servicemembers and their families. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Wilde, E. A., Whiteneck, G. G., Bogner, J., Bushnik, T., Cifu, D. X., Dikmen, S., et al. (2010). Recommendations for the use of common outcome measures in traumatic brain injury research. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 91, 1650–1660. e1617.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tanielian, T., Trail, T.E., Corry, N. (2018). Designing and Implementing Strategic Research Studies to Support Military Families. In: Hughes-Kirchubel, L., Wadsworth, S., Riggs, D. (eds) A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families. Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68984-5_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68984-5_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68983-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68984-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)