An Assessment of Repositories for Researching Military Exposures and Veterans Health

Millions of United States (U.S.) veterans report exposures to a wide range of chemical, physical, radiological, and biological agents during their military service (i.e., military exposures). Given the negative implications of military exposures for veterans health, high quality research is needed to inform disability policy and healthcare strategies. Existing repositories may help streamline research efforts but have not been comparatively evaluated. We conducted a rapid review to identify repositories for streamlining primary and secondary research on long-term health effects of military exposures.

Repositories were included for analysis if they contained data or biospecimens that were collected from current or former U.S. service members. Six criteria concerning inventory (i.e., measures of exposures, biospecimens, personally identifiable information) and research permissions (i.e., future use, future contact, and sharing) were used to make a collective assessment of utility for military exposures research. Repositories were also descriptively coded for specific types of exposure-related data (i.e., air pollutants, chemicals, metals, radiation, warfare agents) and the exposure assessment method (i.e., direct or indirect).

Of 52 identified resources, 29 repositories were eligible for further analysis. The most frequently represented exposure-related data type was air pollutants (n = 13), followed by chemicals (n = 11), warfare agents (n = 8), radiation (n = 6), and metals (n = 5). Most repositories used indirect (n = 24) versus direct (n = 5) exposure assessment methods. Eight repositories met al. 6 assessment criteria.

We identified 8 repositories that are useful for streamlining research on the long-term health outcomes of military exposures. Future efforts that focus on evaluating their data and biospecimen quality will further distinguish these resources regarding readiness to produce high-quality research that informs disability policy and healthcare strategies.