Pesticide Use During the Gulf War

A Survey of Gulf War Veterans

by Ronald D. Fricker, Elaine Reardon, Dalia M. Spektor, Sarah K. Cotton, Jennifer Hawes-Dawson, Jennifer E. Pace, Susan D. Hosek

Download

Full Document

FormatFile SizeNotes
zip file 1.5 MB

The file(s) provided above are ZIP-formatted archives, which most modern systems can natively unpack. If your computer does not unpack the archive when you double-click it, you may need to use a separate decompression program such as UnZip.

Purchase

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback139 pages $15.00 $12.00 20% Web Discount

This report documents the results of a telephone survey of 2,005 Gulf War veterans investigating the use of pesticides during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Respondents statistically represented the U.S. military population in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations between August 1990 and July 1991. Survey results characterized pesticide use by U.S. service members, including personal and field use of pesticides, as well as observed pesticide use by others. Information was obtained for living, working, and eating areas for a randomly chosen month of deployment. Results show that the majority of personnel were exposed to some pesticides, and there were differences in use by service; small differences by season and by rank, and larger differences by living arrangements. Possible cases of misuse of some pesticides were identified. However, with the exception of the use of flea collars, these cases could also be attributed to incorrect pesticide identification. The authors found no evidence of widespread misuse of field pesticides.

Table of Contents

  • Preface

  • Figures

  • Tables

  • Summary

  • Acknowledgements

    Acknowledgments

  • Acronyms

  • A Note on Trade Names

  • Chapter One

    Introduction

  • Chapter Two

    Survey and Sample Description

  • Chapter Three

    Survey Results

  • Chapter Four

    Living Conditions and Variations in Pesticide Use

  • Chapter Five

    Potential Misuse or Overuse of Pesticides

  • Appendix A

    Main Survey Instrument

  • Appendix B

    Definition of the Sampling Frame and Sample

  • Appendix C

    Analytic Methods

  • Appendix D

    Evaluating Recall Bias

  • References

Research conducted by

This research was sponsored by the RAND National Security Research Division and RAND Health.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Monograph report series. The monograph/report was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1993 to 2003. RAND monograph/reports presented major research findings that addressed the challenges facing the public and private sectors. They included executive summaries, technical documentation, and synthesis pieces.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.