Margaret A K Ryan

..Utilizing characteristics of early responders (refusal or consent) in enrollment and recontact efforts may be a unique and cost-effective approach for improving the quality of epidemiologic research...

..In response to increasing concerns about respiratory illness in military recruits, a simple handwashing program was developed and evaluated at a large Navy training center...

..S. Navy. Results of serologic screening undertaken on this large number of young adults may be useful in tracking the changing epidemiology of varicella in the general population in the post-vaccine era...

..In response to health concerns of military members about deployment and other service-related exposures, the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated the largest prospective study ever undertaken in the U.S. military...

..This was the largest outbreak of respiratory illness due to adenovirus types 7 and 3 documented in recent history, and it portends even greater challenges for young adults in the military in the postvaccine era...

..To address this concern, the DoD Birth Defects Registry was established at the DoD Center for Deployment Health Research located at the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, California...

..07 to 1.65). Although military deployers, in general, had a lower incidence of hypertension than nondeployers, deployment with multiple stressful combat exposures appeared to be a unique risk factor for newly reported hypertension...

..01). As the roles and responsibilities of women in the military expand and deployments continue, designing better prevention and recovery strategies specifically for women are critical for overall force health protection and readiness...

..70). Despite no significant overall association between deployment and disordered eating and weight changes, deployed women reporting combat exposures represent a subgroup at higher risk for developing eating problems and weight loss...

..The current study describes new smoking among never-smokers, smoking recidivism among past smokers, and change in daily smoking among smokers in relation to military deployment...

..The objective of this study was to prospectively examine the relation between prior assault and new-onset PTSD symptoms in a large US military cohort deployed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

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..40-1.46). These findings support the hypothesis that registry participants were more likely to experience postwar morbidity than veterans who chose not to enroll in the health registries...

..To describe current efforts and future potential for understanding long-term health of military service members by linking the Millennium Cohort Study data to exposures and health outcomes...

..Findings support the concept that the experience of war, and resulting psychological morbidity, is not a function of incongruent expectations...

..This report outlines how findings from the first 7 years of the Millennium Cohort Study have helped to address health concerns related to military service including deployments...

..High rates of alcohol misuse after deployment have been reported among personnel returning from past conflicts, yet investigations of alcohol misuse after return from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lacking...

..The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of PTSD symptoms and diagnosis, self-reported exposures, and functional health in a large cross-section of the U.S. military...

..These results suggest there is no association between mefloquine prescriptions and severe health effects, as measured by hospitalizations, across a wide range of outcomes...

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..Previous studies have retrospectively examined the relationship of preinjury psychiatric status and postinjury PTSD with conflicting results, but no prospective studies regarding this subject have been conducted, to our knowledge...

..These analyses address health outcomes, particularly preterm births and birth defects, among infants who appear to have been exposed to maternal smallpox vaccination in pregnancy...

..To determine if baseline functional health status, as measured by SF-36 (veterans), predicts new onset symptoms or diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder among deployed US military personnel with combat exposure...

..To describe current and future career-span health research in the US Department of Defense Millennium Cohort Study...

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..To investigate the association between US Navy individual augmentee (IA) deployers, who may lack the protective effects of unit cohesion and social support, and newly reported mental health...

..To describe medical symptom and condition reporting in relation to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among members of the US military...

..The objective of this study was to use exploratory factor analysis to describe the correlations among numerous physical and psychological symptoms in terms of a smaller number of unobserved variables or factors...

..To investigate respiratory illnesses and potential open-air burn pit exposure among Millennium Cohort participants who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan...

..This study aimed to determine whether deployment experience and physical activity were associated with the use of bodybuilding, energy, or weight-loss supplement among U.S. military personnel...

..Bacterial conjunctivitis usually occurs as sporadic cases; outbreaks are uncommon and usually are associated with school campuses. We report an outbreak of Streptococcus pneumoniae conjunctivitis at a military training facility...

..However, there has been little objective research into the possible risks or benefits of unmanaged CAM therapies...

..CONCLUSIONS: These results are reassuring but may be confounded by a healthy worker selection effect. Further studies are needed to assess how service in combat support occupations affects the long-term health of U.S. military women...

..Web responders provided more complete contact information, including their e-mail addresses. These results demonstrate the value of survey research conducted over the Internet in concert with traditional mail survey strategies...

..This study investigates morbidity among deployers by uniquely comparing after-deployment hospitalizations to before-deployment hospitalizations and hospitalizations among nondeployers...

..Although these data may be incomplete, they represent the best-known data reflecting in-theater hospitalizations during the Gulf War of 1991 and show remarkable similarities in risk factors to those for postwar hospitalization...

..Occupational groups with higher odds of reporting military exposures of concern will be followed longitudinally through 2022 and prospectively compared using baseline and follow-up evaluations...

..In contrast, few studies have examined CAM use within military populations, which have ready access to conventional medicine. Currently, the prevalence and impact of CAM use in US military populations remains unknown...

..The purpose of this study was to investigate internal consistency of standardized instruments and concordance of responses in a test-retest setting...

..Vaccine effectiveness against laboratory-confirmed influenza was 92% (95% confidence interval 85%-96%)...

..This exploratory study identified a number of important associations between haemangiomas and congenital malformations that may provide insight into the pathogenesis of these disorders and have possible implications for clinical care...

..No cases of fetal vaccinia have been identified. The Smallpox Vaccine in Pregnancy Registry continues to actively enroll women and follow infant and early-childhood health outcomes...

..This outbreak of MRSA skin infections in an otherwise-healthy, well-defined, military population provided an opportunity to describe risk factors for CA-MRSA which may help focus prevention efforts in this and other communities...

..Laboratory diagnoses complimented the surveillance efforts...

..These findings support the hypothesis that certain occupational factors and wartime exposures may influence subsequent health care-seeking behavior...

..In addition to revealing changes in veterans' health status over time, the Millennium Cohort Study will serve as a data repository, providing a solid foundation upon which additional epidemiological studies may be constructed...

..06, 3.83] for new-onset PTSD or depression. These results suggest that combat experience, not features specific to being a health care professional, was the key exposure explaining the development of these outcomes...

..Although the risk for hospitalization may be associated with regional deployment, it is unlikely that Gulf War veterans are at greater risk of hospitalization due to a specific exposure-related disease...

..Therefore, no association was found between smallpox vaccination and subsequent infertility diagnoses in either men or women. This study represents the first large epidemiologic investigation of infertility after the smallpox vaccine...

..Women, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic participants had a significantly elevated risk for both diseases. Overall, deployment was not associated with an increased risk of newly reported lupus or rheumatoid arthritis...

..In particular, coinfections may influence adenoviral evolution, as interserotypic recombination has been identified as a source of emerging strains...

..To describe new onset and persistence of self reported post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in a large population based military cohort, many of whom were deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

..The purpose of this investigation was to examine characteristics of Millennium Cohort Study participants who responded to the open-ended question, and to identify and investigate the most commonly reported areas of concern...

..Using data from a large military cohort, this study prospectively examined the relationship between deployment experience before and after childbirth and maternal depression among U.S. service women...

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..In contrast to studies of other populations, military respondents reported fewer mental health problems in the months immediately after September 11, 2001...

..Veterans possibly exposed to nerve agents released by the Khamisiyah demolition were not found to be at increased risk for hospitalizations from any other chronic diseases nearly 10 years after the Gulf War...

..The transmission dynamics of adenovirus have never been well understood, which complicates prevention efforts...

..Macrolide resistance was associated with geographic sites and emm type. These data are useful for vaccine development initiatives and antimicrobial treatment considerations...

..Infants in utero during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 may have been negatively affected by maternal stress. Studies to date have produced contradictory results...

..S. military's primary attrition management tools. Finally, the consequences of using different cutoff scores on the 40-item composite were simulated so that various hypothetical screening strategies could be considered...

..In December 2001, a fatal case of pneumococcal meningitis in a Marine Corps recruit was identified. As pneumococcal vaccine usage in recruit populations is being considered, an investigation was initiated into the causative serotype...

..We found no association between squalene antibody status and chronic multisymptom illness (p=0.465). The etiology of Gulf War syndrome remains unknown, but should not include squalene antibody status...

..VE in this population was estimated to be 94.4% for laboratory-confirmed influenza. In contrast, VE was only 13.9% for influenza-like illness (ILI) without a laboratory confirmation...

..This study compared self-reported and electronic deployment data and explored differences in functional health...

..Public health efforts to decrease alcohol misuse may be effectively targeted by prevention of underage alcohol use, tobacco use, and childhood abuse...

..The purpose of this study was to compare self-reported anthrax vaccination to electronic vaccine records among a large military cohort and to evaluate the relationship between vaccine history and health outcome data...

..The burden of asthma hospitalization on the US health care system has greatly interested health care workers, many of whom see the incidence of asthma as increasing...

..Tuberculosis (TB) is a re-emerging infectious disease threat worldwide. To protect the health and readiness of US military personnel, policies exist to screen for and treat latent TB infection at the time of service entrance...

..Data available regarding military families in the U.S. may complement other national surveillance efforts...

..A significant outbreak of S. pneumoniae pneumonia that occurred among Marine recruits is reported here...

..Self-reported diagnoses may differ from medical record diagnoses due to poor patient-clinician communication, self-diagnosis in the absence of a satisfactory explanation for symptoms, or the "health literacy" of the patient...

..0001). These results are valuable in assessing appropriate use of antibiotics and vaccines against S. pneumoniae in both military personnel and their families...

..Similar factors were associated with different categories of attrition (e.g., medical, behavioral). The implications of these findings for attrition reduction strategies are discussed...

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..RSV may account for 11% of clinically important respiratory illnesses in this population, which is as much as 25% of previously undiagnosed illness. These results have implications for treatment and prevention of RSV in young adults...

..Findings should have the potential to delineate neuropsychological outcomes related to combat theater deployment and to identify potential risk and protective factors related to health outcomes...

..For the first time, DoD and Department of Veterans Affairs physicians, public health officers, and researchers will have access to comprehensive baseline health status data...

..The discontinuation of Ad vaccination programs in 1999 precipitated the reemergence of Ad in training sites, with Ad4 accounting for 98% of all diagnosed cases...

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..LIMITATIONS: Adherence to treatment after 6 months was poor. CONCLUSION: Long-term treatment with doxycycline did not improve outcomes of GWVIs at 1 year...

..Although post-war health outcomes have been studied in US, British, Canadian, Danish, and other deployed troops, this issue has not been previously evaluated in coalition forces native to the Gulf region...

..In the US military, immunizations have been effective for the prevention of disease caused by vaccine-homologous serogroups of N. meningitidis...

..These findings complement studies that utilize other data sources, such as electronic hospitalization records, and may be reassuring to health care providers and those who receive the smallpox vaccination...

..The consensus of the group was that a nationally led effort in developing health indicator surveillance methods is needed to promote effective, innovative systems...

..The highly structured occupational environment of the military lends itself to studies of preventive interventions designed to reduce disability or occupational attrition resulting from mental/behavioral problems...

..02-4.02, p = 0.05). The outbreak was controlled by administrating lowdose, oral azithromycin prophylaxis (250 mg weekly for 2 weeks) and was associated with a 69% reduction in pneumococcal carriage and a 94% reduction in pneumonia rates...

..We review the existing medical literature to access the risks of fetal vaccinia in these pregnancies and the controversy regarding the prophylactic use of vaccinia immune globulin...

..By paying particular attention to distinct social and religious customs, geopolitical differences, and unique aspects of the health care system, we achieved a successful international collaboration in health research...