Publisher's Synopsis
Behavioral health disparities, in which socially disadvantaged groups such as racial/ethnic minorities, women, and sexual orientation minorities experience greater risk for certain mental health and substance use problems, are well documented in the general population. Less is known about whether similar behavioral health disparities exist among military service members. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) wanted to understand whether the behavioral health disparities seen in the civilian population also exist in the military, which is important to help DoD target its efforts to address the needs of service members and improve force readiness. To investigate this issue, RAND researchers examined the following: (1) whether minority group service members are more likely to experience mental health and substance use problems relative to their majority counterparts in the military and (2) whether minority-majority group differences in beha
