Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.
VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts.
J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2020 Jun;29(6):819-826. doi: 10.1089/jwh.2019.7705. Epub 2020 Apr 3.
A new national cohort of Gulf War (GW) veterans of 1,318 participants was created from the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program 585 Gulf War Era Cohort and Biorepository (GWECB) pilot study. However, female veteran health outcomes have not been reported separately for those deployed versus nondeployed to the 1990-1991 GW. Using data from the cooperative studies program (CSP) #585 GWECB, this study examined whether excess prevalence and patterns of Gulf War Illness (GWI) symptoms were present among female veterans who served during the GW compared with female veterans who did not deploy to the GW (GW-Era). A total of 301 women veterans participated in the survey (203 GW, 98 GW-era). Mean ages in 2016 were 53 years among GW women veterans and 54 years among GW-era women. Participant groups did not differ by age, race, ethnicity, or education, but GW women were more likely to have served in the army or navy and less likely to have served in the air force. Compared with GW-era women, GW-deployed women were significantly more likely to report 7 out of 34 symptoms related to cognitive, neurological, and mood problems and respiratory complaints when controlling for age, race, GW deployment, branch of service, and smoking status in logistic regression analyses. Ordered logistic regression was also used to estimate the association between the total number of self-reported symptoms and deployment status, age, race, branch of service, and smoking status. Results showed deployed GW veterans to have a nearly twofold risk of reporting more symptoms than GW-era women, with younger, nonwhite, army-enlisted GW women significantly more likely to report more total symptoms. Twenty-five years after the war, GWECB women GW veterans continued to report a wide variety of symptoms at a significantly higher excess frequency prevalence than GW-era women. Our results showed at least a 14% excess frequency prevalence in all seven significantly different symptoms encompassing two out of the six Kansas GWI criteria, including neurological/mood/cognition, and respiratory domains. These results suggest that further study of these symptom domains is warranted in GW women veterans.
一个由 1318 名参与者组成的新的海湾战争（GW）退伍军人国家队列是从退伍军人事务合作研究计划 585 海湾战争时代队列和生物库（GWECB）试点研究中创建的。然而，对于那些被部署到 1990-1991 年海湾战争的退伍军人和没有被部署到海湾战争的退伍军人，女性退伍军人的健康结果并没有分别报告。使用合作研究计划（CSP）#585 GWECB 的数据，本研究检查了与没有被部署到海湾战争的女性退伍军人相比，在海湾战争期间服役的女性退伍军人是否存在海湾战争疾病（GWI）症状的过度流行和模式。共有 301 名女性退伍军人参加了这项调查（203 名海湾战争退伍军人，98 名海湾战争时代退伍军人）。2016 年的平均年龄为 53 岁，海湾战争女性退伍军人为 53 岁，海湾战争时代女性退伍军人为 54 岁。两组参与者在年龄、种族、族裔或教育程度上没有差异，但海湾战争女性退伍军人更有可能在陆军或海军服役，而不太可能在空军服役。与海湾战争时代女性退伍军人相比，在控制年龄、种族、海湾战争部署、服役部门和吸烟状况后，海湾战争部署的女性退伍军人更有可能报告 34 种与认知、神经和情绪问题以及呼吸问题相关的症状中的 7 种。有序逻辑回归也用于估计自我报告症状总数与部署状态、年龄、种族、服役部门和吸烟状况之间的关联。结果表明，与海湾战争时代的女性退伍军人相比，部署的海湾战争退伍军人报告的症状数量几乎增加了一倍，年轻的、非白人、陆军入伍的海湾战争女性退伍军人更有可能报告更多的总症状。在战争结束 25 年后，GWECB 的女性海湾战争退伍军人继续报告广泛的各种症状，其过度频率患病率明显高于海湾战争时代的女性退伍军人。我们的研究结果表明，包括神经/情绪/认知和呼吸领域在内的六个堪萨斯海湾战争疾病标准中的两个标准在内的七种明显不同的症状中，至少有 14%的症状频率患病率过高。这些结果表明，需要进一步研究海湾战争女性退伍军人的这些症状领域。
