Research News

Special Issue of Medical Care on Military Environmental Exposure

January 14, 2026

Almost half of Veterans seeking VA healthcare have concerns about military environmental exposures. Addressing these concerns and providing exposure-informed care is fundamental to VA's mission. Medical Care recently published a special issue focused on Health Care for Military Environmental Exposure Concerns with the goal of highlighting military environmental exposures as an area of Veterans' care, including epidemiological, clinical research, health science research, implementation science, and quality improvement. Guest editors of this special issue were HSR investigators Lisa McAndrew, PhD, and Katharine Bloeser, PhD, both part of VA New Jersey Healthcare and the War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center (WRIISC). Articles by HSR investigators included:

• Exposure-informed Care: Why It's Important and How the VA Does It. McAndrew and colleagues describe how VA is implementing exposure-informed care-a model of care that "recognizes how previous possible or known exposures to environmental factors may impact health and cause concern, and seeks to create an environment that at every level of the healthcare system is validating, transparent, and proactively addresses environmental exposures."
• Ask the Experts: Veterans' Perspectives on Communicating about Airborne Hazard Exposure: Fix and colleagues use focus groups to understand how Veterans with airborne hazards concerns prefer VA to communicate about military environmental exposures when the evidence is limited or unclear.
• Healthcare Journeys of Veterans with Gulf War Illness. Bloeser and colleagues explore the journey of Veterans with Gulf War Illness as they navigate the healthcare system, providing an understanding of system-level barriers and facilitators to healthcare. They also provide insight into when and where interventions might be most effective to improving care for Gulf War Illness.
• Psychiatric Conditions and Symptoms after Toxic Environmental Exposures during Miliary Service. Magnante and colleagues use evidence mapping to evaluate the literature and determine what research exists on the co-occurrence of military environmental exposures and mental health conditions or symptoms. They also explore whether Veterans with a history of military environmental exposures also report having co-occurring mental health conditions or symptoms.
• Burn Pit Smoke Exposure and Sleep Apnea in US Veterans: A Retrospective Cohort Study. Agrawal and colleagues examine the relationship between self-report of burn pit smoke exposure with sleep apnea prevalence and severity documented in the electronic medical record for Veterans who were enrolled in the VA's Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pits Registry from 2014 to 2022.