WASHINGTON—It’s been nearly six months since the House VA Committee launched its bipartisan Women Veterans Task Force, and the result is a legislative docket filled with bills geared toward ensuring VA has the resources it needs to care for the growing number of...
HINES, IL—Women and veterans with multiple comorbidities used and valued the Veterans Choice Program (VCP) more than other veterans, according to recent research by the VA.1 To help these veterans and others, the VA has taken steps under the MISSION Act to improve...
Unrecognized by many in healthcare is that the greatest increases in long-term opioid use and opioid-related overdose mortality in recent years have been among women in midlife.
Birth Control Pill Change Could Save VA $2 Million Annually PITTSBURGH—What if there was a method to prevent nearly 600 unintended pregnancies and save the VA about $2 million a year in prenatal, birth and newborn care costs while also bolstering the reproductive...
WASHINGTON—Women veterans regularly experience harassment by male veterans at VA facilities, and that harassment has a direct and lasting impact on their healthcare, VA researchers reported recently. Investigators from the VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System and...
WASHINGTON—VA is straining its capacity and struggling against a culture that can sometimes be hostile to women as it responds to what VA officials consider a “tsunami wave of women veterans” over the last decade. Today, women make up more than 16% of active-duty...
SAN FRANCISCO—Emotional abuse from a partner or spouse can increase the risk of heightened menopause symptoms, as can post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a VA-led study. Little is known about the prevalence of traumatic exposures among midlife and older women...
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Past studies have shown that the unintended pregnancy rate is higher among U.S. servicewomen than the general population and that servicewomen sometimes face barriers to contraceptive use. Yet, according to a study in Military Medicine, little research...
Research on fibromyalgia, a poorly understood, chronically disabling pain syndrome, generally has focused on its clinical presentation and treatment.
Having Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM-2) increases mortality risk in breast cancer patients, regardless of whether diabetes was diagnosed before or after breast cancer, according to a recent study.
NEW YORK — From 2000 to 2014, the number of women veterans receiving care through the VA doubled. Today, approximately 750,000 women are enrolled in the VHA healthcare system and about half a million use it each year.
BUFFALO, NY — Does chiropractic management create clinically significant improvement in low back pain for female U.S. veterans? That was the question investigated by a study published recently in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapy.1 For the...
BOSTON — Depression and anxiety can be debilitating on their own. For women veterans, the conditions raise an additional concern: They significantly increase the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD)—the leading cause of death in the United States.
BRONX, NY — In the civilian world, the word “concussion” might evoke the image of a football player and the sound of helmet-to-helmet contact. In a military environment, it might evoke the image of a soldier in the path of a blast wave. In both...
With growing concern about overtreatment of breast cancer as outcomes have improved over time, not much research has been performed on how chemotherapy use and oncologists’ recommendations have changed in recent years.
The VA has focused on reducing the risk of opioid abuse and addiction by issuing guidance that strongly recommends against the use of the painkillers for chronic pain since the implementation of the Opioid Safety Initiative in 2013.
HOUSTON—The epidemiology clinical course of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is affected by gender. Yet, few long-term longitudinal studies have examined trends in the incidence and prevalence of serious liver complications among women compared with men with HCV...
Unintended pregnancy is reportedly to be higher in the military population, according to a new study seeking to determine the rates of unintended pregnancy among active duty servicemembers compared to other military healthcare beneficiaries.
