Australian Gulf War Veterans’ Health Study 2003

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The Australian Gulf War Veterans’ Health Study was the first comprehensive health study of the entire group of Australian War veterans involved in a single theatre of war. The study was conducted by a collaborative research team from:

The Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine at Monash University
Health Services Australia Ltd
The Department of Public Health at the University of Western Australia
The Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health at the University of Melbourne

Synopsis

The study investigated the physical and psychological health of 1871 Australian veterans of the 1991 Gulf War compared with a randomly sampled comparison group of Australian Defence Force personnel who were operational at the time of the Gulf War but who did not deploy to that conflict (n=2924). Recruitment and data collection for the study commenced in August 2000 and concluded in April 2002. Participation included completing a postal questionnaire and undertaking a comprehensive medical assessment at one of ten Health Services Australia clinics located around Australia. Health effects across several body systems were investigated including psychological health, symptoms and medical conditions, factor analysis of reported symptoms, respiratory health, neurological health, chronic fatigue syndrome, laboratory investigations, reproductive health, mortality and cancer. A cohort was established to measure mortality and cancer incidence into the future. The study also investigated whether health effects were associated with medical, chemical and environmental exposures or stressful military service experiences that may have occurred during the Gulf War deployment.

Reports available online

The following reports and documents are available online: