An international website dedicated to providing current information on news, reports, publications,and peer-reviewed research articles concerning alcoholism and alcohol-related problems throughout the world.
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Friday, November 12, 2010
Female Veterans Aged 20 to 39 Less Likely to Use Most Substances than Male Counterparts
The proportion of women in the military has grown exponentially since the Vietnam war, and increasingly women have been deployed to combat areas not just as nurses but also as combat support troops. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that in 2009 there were approximately 1.8 million female veterans in the United States. Many of these women had faced the same service-related stressors as their male counterparts, as well as the additional stressors attendant to being a female in a male-dominated profession.
Although some studies have shown that, overall, veterans are more likely than nonveterans to use substances, there are few available published data that compare rates of substance use between female and male veterans. Data from the 2002 to 2009 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUHs) showed that female veterans were significantly less likely than their male counterparts to engage in binge alcohol use, smoke cigarettes, or use any illicit drugs, including marijuana (Figure). However, female and male veterans were equally likely to engage in nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs.
