Office of Research & Development |
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VA research looks for ways to provide access to quality health care for all Veterans. (Social Worker Amy Mitchell and Veteran James Love, part of rural Veteran research; photo by Joseph DeSciose.)
The VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) is an HSR&D Center of Innovation devoted to research on health equity within the VA health care system. Along with the Health Equity and Rural Outreach Innovation Center (HEROIC), CHERP co-hosted a state-of-the-science conference in 2016. The conference brought together 100 research investigators and partners to address strategies to improve health equity for minorities, homeless Veterans, and LGBT Veterans.
In September 2017, the journal Medical Care published a special supplement devoted to research growing out of that conference, titled "Advancing Health Equity in the VA Health Care System."
The supplement included a systematic review of interventions to reduce disparities in at-risk Veteran populations, and a discussion of the role that implementation science can play in advancing health equity research.
Five original research studies focused on detecting, understanding, or improving health equity for racial and/or ethnic Veteran minorities. In a study that looked at polysubstance use disorder in Veterans, researchers reviewed a national sample of more than 472,000 Veterans. They found that affected Veterans were more likely to be African American and homeless, and have greater use of medical services than Veterans who had a single substance use disorder.
Two studies focused on the experiences of Veterans with military sexual trauma. In one study, researchers reviewed the records of nearly 486,000 Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans who utilized VA health care. They found that a positive screen for military sexual trauma was associated with greater health care use and costs. In a survey of 407 OEF/OIF Veterans, close to two-thirds of both men and women reported intimate partner violence within the last six months. Physical and sexual IPV was associated with more severe mental health symptoms in women, and physical IPV was associated with lower health-related quality of life in men.
Two studies focused on health care use among homeless Veterans. One group of researchers looked at the effectiveness of long-acting, reversible contraceptives in 41,747 long-term homeless women Veterans. They found that these Veterans had higher rates of physical and mental health conditions. However, long-acting contraceptive use was higher in the long-term homeless sample, demonstrating modest success in helping vulnerable women Veterans.
