FED:Female Vietnam veterans to be surveyed

AAP General News (Australia)
08-31-2010
FED:Female Vietnam veterans to be surveyed

CANBERRA, Aug 31 AAP - Australia's female Vietnam veterans and their modern day counterparts
are to be surveyed to build a better picture of the lasting effects of conflict on women.

The research project, funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs and led by Dr Samantha
Crompvoets from the Australian National University, aims to answer many questions about
the health and wellbeing of women, mostly health professionals, who served in Vietnam.

More than 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1972 and they've been extensively
studied with a succession of health and mortality studies.

But the much smaller group of women, including 210 military nurses plus some official
entertainers and accredited journalists, have attracted far less attention.

Dr Crompvoets said there was a massive gap in research on the experience of women even
in more recent conflicts, including Timor, Afghanistan and peacekeeping operations.

"What the project is trying to do is collect the stories of female veterans and look
at how deployment has impacted on these women's lives, comparing women who served in Vietnam...with
women who have served who have been deployed in more recent conflicts and peacekeeping
operations," she said.

Dr Crompvoets said those women who served in Vietnam were now approaching retirement
age and there had been no studies of their experience for at least a decade.

A 1998 study found female Vietnam veterans were less likely to classify their health
as excellent or good and that some conditions, including asthma, depression, cancer, panic
attacks and heart disease, were more common.

She said many studies of male veterans had shown that post-traumatic stress disorder
could emerge at times of life transition such as retirement.

As part of this study, Dr Crompvoets is looking for ex-military health personnel from
Vietnam and from more recent operations to build up a detailed picture of their experiences.

Dr Crompvoets said there was a significant amount of research on US female Vietnam veterans.

"But their experience doesn't necessarily translate to the Australian experience," she said.

Dr Crompvoets said women now comprised around 13 per cent of the Australian Defence
Force with significant numbers deploying on overseas missions.

"The increasing proportion of females that are war, peacekeeping or peacemaking veterans
raises new questions about their health and well being and their use of healthcare services,"

she said.

AAP mb/sb/it

KEYWORD: VETERANS

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