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Military Personnel

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Armed forces include active-duty and reserve personnel, officers, and enlisted corps. RAND research and analysis helps policymakers understand how to recruit, train, and educate the military workforce and provide cost-effective health care for military personnel and their families.

Report
How the Pandemic Affected Military Recruitment and Retention
Military recruiting and retention activities are typically conducted in person, but with COVID-19–related stay-at-home orders and social distancing requirements, the armed services had to quickly adapt their policies and procedures or risk missing their end strength objectives.
Jan 18, 2022
Essay
Preventing Sexual Violence in the Military
The military has worked hard in recent years to raise awareness about the problem of sexual violence. But it needs to take a big step forward to make investments and change the culture in ways that will deter sexual assault and sexual harassment by holding perpetrators and leaders accountable.
Nov 2, 2021

Explore Military Personnel

Report
Emerging Options for Field-Grade Officer Promotions in the U.S. Air Force
The Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act established an alternative framework for promotion policies for military officers. The authors examine whether shifting to this framework would be beneficial and how it would be implemented.
Mar 29, 2023
Report
Neurodiversity and National Security: How to Tackle National Security Challenges with a Wider Range of Cognitive Talents
This report provides research and analysis for national security managers and employees who seek to better understand neurodivergence and neurodiversity and desire simple steps to achieve neurodiverse inclusivity for national security workplaces.
Mar 27, 2023
Research Brief
Why National Security Needs Neurodiversity
Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen an organization. Members of the neurodivergent population have skills that can be beneficial in many fields of interest to national security. These include pattern recognition, problem-solving, visualization, and memory.
Mar 27, 2023
Commentary
The Ripples of War Are Only Beginning to Spread. Is America Ready?
There are now more than 1.9 million U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 50,000 were physically injured and around 15 percent have experienced PTSD. Perhaps all were exposed to burn pits and other toxins. What are the long-term impacts of the wars on those who fought them?
Mar 23, 2023
Report
Organizing and Training Airfield Operations Capabilities for Emerging Expeditionary Operations: Potential Courses of Action
The authors identify ways to enable the airfield operations (AO) career fields to respond to the needs created by the Dynamic Force Employment concept and the USAF implementation of Agile Combat Employment.
Mar 16, 2023
Report
Interventions for People Who Have Attempted Suicide and Their Family Members: A Systematic Review
A history of having attempted suicide is an important risk factor for suicide. In this report, the authors review the uptake, retention, and effectiveness of suicide aftercare interventions after an attempt.
Mar 8, 2023
Report
The Impact of Army JROTC Participation on School and Career Outcomes
To understand the relationship between participating in the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (AJROTC) program and longer-term outcomes, the authors analyzed longitudinal student data and Army service member records.
Mar 7, 2023
Report
Assessment of Joint All Domain Command and Control Requirements and the Use of Live, Virtual, and Constructive Capabilities for Training
This report presents research findings addressing the use of live, virtual, and constructive simulation capabilities for continuation training at air operation centers in the U.S. Air Force, in support of Joint All Domain Command and Control.
Mar 2, 2023
Report
Quantifying Potential Cost Avoidance Implications of Outcomes Reported in Behavioral and Social Science Research
This report summarizes and develops utility functions for a series of behavioral and social science studies to help senior leaders translate the research results into estimates of cost avoidance or other desired benefits.
Feb 22, 2023
Blog
Earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Facial Recognition, Gun Violence: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, regulating the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement, improving data collection on gun violence, and more.
Feb 17, 2023
Commentary
Preventing Military Sexual Assault Is Important. So Is Getting Mental Health Care Afterward
Despite a decade of scrutiny on the issue, sexual assault and harassment in the military is still a pervasive problem. The effects of the trauma from these assaults can be lasting. So it's not just the military services, but also veterans' services, that need to connect these people to appropriate care for mental health.
Feb 15, 2023
Report
A New Framework and Logic Model for Using Live, Virtual, and Constructive Training in the United States Air Force
To help improve training and readiness in the U.S. Air Force, the authors describe a framework for aligning live, virtual, and constructive capabilities with training needs on collective, complex, cognitive tasks for aircrews.
Feb 2, 2023
Commentary
The Need for Irregular Warfare Professional Military Education
The Department of Defense does not provide the irregular warfare professional military education necessary for success in competition and conflict in the 21st century. This is not a new problem, but it is one that may deserve new attention from Congress and the Pentagon.
Feb 1, 2023
Commentary
Unlocking Training Technology for Multi-Domain Operations
Multi-domain operations (MDO) can present many challenges for training. Involvement of various disparate organizations and services can exacerbate these challenges and can require balancing centralized coordination with decentralized training objectives. If MDO is to provide new benefits, the training community may need to solve old problems. It may need to communicate more effectively.
Jan 24, 2023
Report
Assessing the Implications of Policy Options for the Military Personnel Budget: An Analytic Framework for Evaluating Costs and Trade-Offs
A new tool simulates how various Department of the Air Force personnel policy changes could affect military spending. The tool lets users view cost variances and trade-offs when adjusting such factors as personnel count, rank, and experience levels.
Jan 17, 2023
Report
The Today's Army Spouse Panel Proof-of-Concept Study: Methodological Report
Researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the Today's Army Spouse Panel, an operational proof of concept survey panel of U.S. Army spouses, in recruiting participants and providing timely information representative of Army spouses.
Jan 17, 2023
Report
Today's Army Spouse Panel Survey: Impact of COVID-19
COVID-19 has had a broad and continuing impact across society. How did the pandemic affect Army spouses with respect to employment, child care, financial, and other concerns in 2020 and 2021?
Jan 17, 2023
Report
Psychological Harms and Treatment of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in Adults: Systematic and Scoping Reviews to Inform Improved Care for Military Populations
Researchers conducted three evidence reviews on interventions for victims of sexual assault and harassment in military settings, barriers and facilitators to accessing care, and associations between victims and specific mental health conditions.
Jan 9, 2023
Research Brief
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault in Military Settings
Members of the military who have been victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment often experience PTSD, depression, and substance use disorders. What therapies are effective at treating these conditions? And what barriers prevent service members from getting the care that they need?
Jan 9, 2023
Blog
A Potential Russian Attack on NATO, China in the Arctic, Inflation: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on how the West might respond in the case of a limited Russian attack on NATO, what China's Arctic ambitions mean to the United States, how inflation affects middle-class households, and more.
Jan 6, 2023

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Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Laura L. Miller

Senior Social Scientist

Laura L. Miller is a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation. For 30 years she has studied the lives of military personnel and their families through surveys, observations, discussion groups, one-on-one interviews, and analyses of military policy and personnel data. Research topics…
Tara L. Terry

Senior Operations Researcher

Tara Terry is a senior operations researcher working across several of RAND's FFRDCs conducting research on behalf of the Air Force, Space Force, Army, Joint Operations, and Homeland Security. Terry has 13+ years of operations research experience with a focus on data analysis, mathematical…

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