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BACKGROUND/RATIONALE:
Women veterans have unique healthcare needs. Compared with male veterans, a lower proportion of women veterans use VA healthcare services. VA healthcare users are exposed to one of three major women's health delivery models - comprehensive women's health clinics (delivering primary and gender-specific care), women's clinics for annual gender-specific examinations only (with other care delivered in primary care clinics), and traditional primary care clinics (i.e., care for women fully integrated with care for men). Regional studies of women veterans have identified gender-specific barriers to VA use, but are not designed to account for geographic variation in the organization and availability of VA and non-VA healthcare, and therefore cannot fully inform national Women Veterans Health Strategic Healthcare Group planning and policy.
OBJECTIVE(S):
The objectives of the NSWV are to: (1) identify the current status, demographics, health care needs, and VA experience of women veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces; (2) determine how health care needs and barriers to VA health care use differ among women veterans of different periods of military service; and (3) assess women veterans preference for and perceived value of different types of VA interventions to improve access and quality. The objective of this SDR supplemental data collection is to determine the impact of VA women's health practice structure on access, satisfaction, and quality of care for women veteran VA healthcare users in the NSWV.
METHODS:
The NSWV is a nationwide telephone survey being conducted of women veterans, including both VA users and VA nonusers, with oversampling of OIF/OEF veterans. To achieve the SDR objective, the VA user sample will be expanded. Survey items include measures of demographic and military service characteristics, health status, VA and non-VA ambulatory care use, and determinants of and barriers to VA healthcare use. In the full sample, these measures will be compared for women veterans from different military period cohorts. In the VA user sample, these data will be compared for women veterans exposed to each of the predominant VA women's health practice structures.
FINDINGS/RESULTS:
No findings yet.
IMPACT:
The only prior national study on the needs, attitudes and experiences of women veterans was published in 1985 and is outdated. A current National Survey of Women Veterans (NSWV) will assist the VA in identifying the changing health care needs of the growing population of women veterans, and the barriers they experience to VA healthcare use. Collection of this data will also allow VA to identify prevalence rates of common medical and mental health conditions, unmet need for healthcare, and healthcare delivery preferences, including the features of VA women's health delivery models that facilitate versus hinder access to VA care. Over-sampling of OIF/OEF veterans will facilitate projections of how healthcare needs of women veterans may change in the near future. Variations in the perceptions and VA experienes of women veteran VA users exposed to the predominant VA women's health delivery models will allow VA to better define components of potential interventions to improve VA access and quality.
PUBLICATIONS:
None at this time.
DRA:
none
DRE:
none
Keywords:
none
MeSH Terms:
none
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