Novel Methods to Assess the Military's Evolving Prevention Capabilities

Abstract

Service members experience a variety of harmful behaviors, such as sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, and suicide, that can affect their overall health and quality of life and be detrimental to force readiness. While response and treatment are vital services to address these harms, a robust prevention system is also needed. The Department of Defense (DoD) asked RAND Corporation researchers to develop a prevention capabilities assessment process for use across the active and reserve forces and to pilot the process during visits at 20 installations that were at higher risk for, or had a greater number of protective factors to mitigate, these harmful behaviors. This report describes how the prevention capabilities assessment process was developed, pilot tested, and assessed for validity. The metrics assessed prevention capabilities in nine areas covering the extent to which military installations prioritized, were prepared to promote, or are currently promoting integrated primary prevention and efforts to create healthy and protective environments and are engaging with service members around these efforts. In pilot tests, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) leaders, researchers, and some installation staff found the metrics beneficial in terms of capturing and providing useful and nuanced information about prevention practices and areas for growth, and the analyses generally supported the validity of the metrics. Moving forward, DoD should continue to validate and refine these metrics as prevention efforts evolve and grow. These metrics, as part of an integrated process of risk identification and assessment, will help DoD track its prevention capability

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2022
Accession Number
AD1204698

Entities

People

  • Armenda Bialas
  • Belinda Hernandez
  • Charles Barton
  • Christine K. Lacoste
  • Ellen M. Pint
  • Ingrid Estrada-darley
  • Jack Baker
  • Joie D. Acosta
  • Keller Scholl
  • Laura L. Miller
  • Mallika Bhandarkar
  • Matthew Chinman
  • Pamela Imm
  • Paul Flaspohler
  • Samer Atshan
  • Sarah O. Meadows
  • Sarita D. Lee
  • Shoshana R. Shelton
  • Stephanie B. Holliday
  • Tara L. Blagg

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Climate Change
  • Data Analysis
  • Domestic Violence
  • Employment
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Families (Human)
  • Health Services
  • Human Behavior
  • Management Personnel
  • Medical Personnel
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Public Health
  • Students
  • Teamwork

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Organizational Psychology.