Illnesses among United States veterans of the Gulf War: A population-basedsurvey of 30,000 veterans

Despite numerous studies on veterans of the 1990 to 1991 Gulf War, the fund amental questions of how healthy they are and how their health compares wit h that of their military peers who were not deployed to the Gulf have not b een fully answered. We conducted a health survey in which the health outcom es of a population-based sample of 15,000 Gulf veterans representing variou s military branches and unit components (regular, reserve, National Guard) were compared with those of 15, 000 non-Gulf veterans who were randomly sam pled to mirror the number in the same military st rata in the Gulf veteran group. In comparison with their peers, Gulf veterans had a higher prevalenc e of functional impairment, health care utilization, symptoms, and medical conditions and cc higher rate of low general health perceptions, A longitud inal follow-up of the health of these veterans will be needed to detect cha nges in health status and to detect diseases with a long latency period.