2018 Health Related Behaviors Survey Summary Findings and Policy Implications for the Active Component
Abstract
The Health Related Behaviors Survey (HRBS) is the U.S. Department of Defenses (DoDs) flagship survey for understanding the health, health-related behaviors, and well-being of service members. Fielded periodically for more than 30 years, the HRBS includes content areas that might affect military readiness or the ability to meet the demands of military life. The Defense Health Agency asked the RAND Corporation to revise and field the 2018 HRBS among members of both the active component and the reserve component. This brief discusses findings for the active component. This brief presents high-level summary results for broad topics of the HRBS, as well as policy implications of key findings. Where available, estimates of changes since the 2015 HRBS are reported; they rely on regression estimates because the findings for the two surveys are not directly comparable given significant changes in methodology. The HRBS results are also compared with Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) objectives established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the general U.S. population. Because the military differs notably from the general population (for example, service members are more likely to be young and male than is the general population), these comparisons are offered only as a benchmark of interest. Ways of improving future iterations of the HRBS are also suggested.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1129943
Entities
Organizations
- RAND Corporation