Psychopharmaceuticals and Medicated Soldiering in America's post-9/11 Military

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

The United States military has seen an unprecedented and marked turn to the use of psychiatric medications by service personnel in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006, the US Department of Defense developed for the first time official criteria for the use of FDA-approved psychiatric medications "in theater", in the physical and tactical spaces of military operations including active combat. Conservative estimates suggest that 1 in 6 service members is now taking at least one psychiatric medication. The use of psychiatric medications by the US military has attracted public attention, and is poised to influence the ways that Americans think about soldiering and the nature of war. Studies on the topic remain largely theoretical and center on the ethics of military psychiatric medication use. This project aims to understand how these medications are prescribed and used in practice, as well as how military service members understand medication effects on the work of counterinsurgency. The results from this study will have important implications for public knowledge and policy, as well as for veteran advocates and clinical practice aimed at the post-service transition of veterans. The project fosters the inclusion of underrepresented student veterans in military and veteran-related academic research and to support diversity in social and behavioral science. It will do so by 1) mentoring student veterans, 2) bringing together researchers and veterans in a symposium to address ways forward for collaborative research, and 3) publishing a co-edited volume on this important topic. Dr. Jocelyn Chua of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will explore how psychiatric medications have been assimilated into the operations, infrastructures and norms of post-9/11 counterinsurgency, how these medications are understood and experienced by soldiers, and what impact these medications have had on the cultural landscape of soldiering in the U.S. Given the Army's prescription trends and prominent role in ground combat operations compared with other military branches, the research will focus on the US Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard. The PI and research team will use in-depth interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observation to understand the formal and informal ways that psychiatric medications are being prescribed, accessed, used, and shared. The research team will also assess enlisted soldiers' experiences of psychiatric medication use in deployment and their evaluations of the propriety of these medications to counterinsurgency soldiering. The PI will also conduct archival research to contextualize current military psychiatric medication use within the recent history of the practice of US military behavioral and mental health. Research will be based in North Carolina and Washington, DC. Home to four military bases, including Fort Bragg Army base, North Carolina currently has the third highest number of active duty and reserve members of all US states. The National Archives and the National Library of Medicine in Washington, DC and Maryland, respectively, house extensive military resources for the archival research. Findings from this research will illuminate how psychiatric medications are used in deployment and soldiers' own accounts of their use in order to determine the extent to which theoretical concerns and public debate align with the experiences and concerns of soldiers themselves. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.