Protect the women who protect us: Close military health gaps

November is a month when we honor the sacrifices veterans across the country have made to protect our nation. Yet, as November comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the immense work that is still needed to comprehensively support the health of our nation’s women veterans. 

There are more than 2 million women veterans in the U.S. today, representing the fastest-growing group in the veteran population. This growth illustrates the roughly seven-fold increase in the number of women enlisting in the military since the 1970s. Today, the latest data reveal that women make up almost one in five members of the active-duty military, and around four out of 10 women veterans belong to a marginalized racial or ethnic group. 

Despite these uptrends in representation, we still face immense challenges to retaining servicewomen. 

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), women are 28 percent more likely to leave the military than their male counterparts. High rates of female attrition leave the military with higher recruiting costs, longer training times and lower productivity — all factors that deplete the strength and compromise the readiness of the U.S. military. 

According to reports issued by the U.S. Department of Defense, GAO and the RAND Corporation, the reasons behind high rates of attrition for servicewomen are manifold, including a lack of female mentors, family planning concerns, limited access to quality childcare services and inadequate healthcare services. 

The Department of Defense acknowledges that military diversity is a strength and has issued updated policies to allow greater inclusion of servicewomen in operational and deployable positions. This includes the 2013 landmark decision to allow women to serve in combat positions. 

But even as we’ve made these positive policy changes, an effort to comprehensively address the distinct health challenges faced by military women has lagged. Specifically, research shows military women face chronic urogenital problems as a result of limited access to bathrooms and intentional fluid restriction, a 60 percent rate of unplanned pregnancy and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression that correlate, in part, with these unmet health needs.  

To address some of the root causes of attrition among women in the military, my organization, HealthyWomen, launched Ready, Healthy & Able: an educational program to narrow the retention disparity in the military by providing servicewomen with resources to be their own health advocates in a health system that’s not designed for them. 

The program features information on a variety of health topics tailored to the unique needs of servicewomen, including urogenital infections, fibroids, contraception, polycystic ovary syndrome, pelvic pain conditions and mental health. Further, the program provides education to military health professionals (with continuing education credits) designed to address specific female health conditions to better serve the needs of their patients. Future programming will include health education for veterans and spouses and expand provider education through in-person, on-base teachings. 

The Ready, Healthy & Able program is just one resource the nation’s military and healthcare providers can turn to, but it’s not a panacea. According to the Defense Health Board’s November 2020 Report, efforts to address these issues have been “isolated, uncoordinated, unstandardized and unmeasured,” and initiatives were often “short-lived, underfunded, or advanced only by individual champions or advisory bodies without implementation authority.” 

It is time for the DoD to commit to improving the health care services and support for women veterans and active-duty servicewomen and work to adopt the Defense Health Agency’s recommendations, including the establishment of an overarching office within the DoD to provide authority and accountability for outcomes related to health care delivery, health care personnel and related policies for servicewomen. 

By comprehensively protecting active-duty servicewomen and women veterans — and learning from their experiences and uplifting their voices — our government can craft policies that preserve the diversity and strength of our military today and for years to come. And that serves us all. 

Martha Nolan, J.D. is a senior policy advisor for HealthyWomen.