Overall Health and Wellbeing of Female Veterans Compared to Their Male Counterparts
Abstract
Women serving in the military are a growing demographic
amongst those who seek medical assistance from the Veterans
Association (VA). In recent years, the VA has reconstructed its
facilities to accommodate women and their needs associated with
women’s health. My aim is to understand the gender gap in service
members. I want to find out if women veterans are receiving adequate
health care and how they feel about their overall health and wellbeing,
in order to improve health care, benefits, and understanding
of healthy living within the VA. Adequate, for the purpose of this
essay, will be explored through various facets and meanings of health.
Health will be explained through the traditional medical definition as
it pertains to physical health, as well as expanding on that definition
to include the overall well-being of the individual through social,
mental, and emotional needs. I hypothesize that female soldiers are not receiving adequate
health care. “Adequate” means that these facilities are at par, or better,
than services provided to the general public in addressing the specific
needs of female veterans at equal value to male veterans. To test
this theory I will be looking at data provided by The General Social
Survey from 2013. My data concerns female respondents who have
served in the armed forces and their responses to questions about
their overall health, relationships, and views on life. To figure out
intervening variables, I will compare this data to those respondents
who answered similarly but who have not served in the armed forces
in order to see if female veterans’ views are significantly different than
any other group.