The percentage of American gun owners who store their firearms locked, according to a recent research review from the RAND Corporation -- Personal Firearm Storage in the United States: Recent Estimates, Patterns, and Effectiveness of Interventions. The review indicated that 1/3 of gun owners "store all of their firearms locked and unloaded."
Every year over 200,000 veterans separate from military service leaving them with a significant number of decreased social supports, leading many to experience social isolation. Social isolation defined, is a pervasive absence of intimate contact with, and support from others; but felt, is a sensation that is hard to shake. For many of us, we lived it day in and day out during the COVID-19 pandemic, feeling more like a repeat of the 2020 film “Two Distant Strangers” produced by Van Lathan, Jesse Williams, and Sean Combs (to name a few), than our introduction to the new decade. While we were fortunate to have returned to a routine of somewhat normalcy or at least a new normal, many veterans experiencing social isolation continue to grapple with its detrimental impacts.
The weekly Research Update contains the latest news, journal articles, useful links from around the web. Some of this week's topics include:
● Moral injury among U.S. combat veterans with and without PTSD and depression.
● The association of self-reported romantic relationship satisfaction and anhedonia symptoms secondary to posttraumatic stress among trauma-exposed male service members/veterans.
● Lifetime trauma exposure profiles and alcohol use over time among U.S. Reserve and National Guard soldiers.
As we have looked at the concept of moral injury we have predominantly looked at it as a condition of the individual. However, every disorder exists within a social context. In this entry, I’d like to examine the role of American society in moral injury. Previously, I had discussed the treatment options that have evolved. These methods focus on the service members developing some form of peace with what had happened in a variety of ways. What I am hoping to examine is the aspects of our culture and society that may contribute to the burden that our service members bear in the prosecution of a war or conflict.
The "weighted lifetime prevalence" of erectile dysfunction (ED) in a "nationally representative sample of 921 male U.S. veterans", according to a study recently published in the journal Military Medicine -- Erectile Dysfunction in a U.S. National Sample of Male Military Veterans