Long Deployments Affect Mental Health Of Soldiers’ Children

A new study published yesterday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine says the longer U.S. soldiers were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, the more likely their children would be diagnosed with mental health problems. Reuters reports that the study “analyzed medical records of 307,520 children of active-duty Army personnel, aged 5 to 17 years old” and “found almost 17 percent of them exhibited mental health problems.” The study’s researchers wrote that “children of parents who spent more time deployed between 2003 and 2006 fared worse than children whose parents were deployed for a shorter duration.”