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 tor 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) desires to understand whether the behavioral health disparities seen in the civilian population also exist in the military, as this knowledge is important to helping DoD target its efforts to address the needs of service members and improve force readiness. To investigate this issue, the authors examined (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 in the military are similar to or different from those in the civilian population. The authors used data from the 2015 Health Related Behaviors Survey, the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the 2015 and 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the 2015 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Behavioral health outcomes include mental health (e.g., depression, suicide behaviors, posttraumatic stress disorder) and substance use (e.g., problematic alcohol use, tobacco use) conditions. Book jacket.