Assessing the Needs of Soldiers and Their Families at the Garrison Level
Abstract
The U.S. Army makes many demands of its members and, inevitably, their families. A constant cycle of overseas deployments, coupled with the frequent moves that are inherent in military life, places a lot of strain on soldiers and families. The Army has established a wide range of programs to help soldiers and their families cope with the many issues and problems of military life (e.g., deployment cycles). However, it has not always been clear whether these programs meet the most pressing needs of soldiers and their families and help them resolve their problems. To assess the match between Army programs and the needs of soldiers and their families, researchers from the RAND Arroyo Center designed a broad-ranging survey that considered the installation environment, the demographics of the population, the problems encountered, the types of help needed as a result of those problems, the resources soldiers draw on to deal with the problems, the barriers to using both military and civilian resources to meet needs, the effectiveness of the resources used, and, last, attitudes toward military service. That survey, administered to over 7,000 soldiers from September 2014 to January 2015, and the report that followed (Sims, Trail, et al., 2017) took an Army-wide view of how its members used the resources provided to them and whether there were gaps between the perceived needs of soldiers and their families for dealing with problems and the resources available to help with those problems.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 20, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1056349
Entities
People
- Beth E. Lachman
- Carra S. Sims
- Emily K. Chen
- Erika Meza
- Parisa Roshan
- Thomas E Trail
Organizations
- RAND Corporation