Deployment and the Military Family: Impact on Levels of Health Care Demand

摘要

The purpose of this research was to study the effects of deployment on the health care demands of family members. Anecdotal evidence and previously conducted studies suggested that family members of deployed sponsors seek health care at a greater rate than family members whose sponsors are not deployed. The opportunity to test this hypothesis presented itself when nearly half of the 700 staff members of the Naval Hospital Bremerton in Bremerton, Washington, deployed as a unit -- Fleet Hospital Bremerton. Statistical analyses were conducted on 48 families of Fleet Hospital personnel who deployed in 2003 and 63 families of non-Fleet Hospital personnel who did not deploy. After applying t-tests between the two groups as well as among each group for two time periods (including one period in 2002 when none were deployed), no statistically significant difference in health care utilization rates was discovered as a result of deployment in this population sample. Studies in other populations, however, may yield different results.