Book Description
This report reproduces (1) advance materials sent to 2,005 Gulf War veterans as part of a survey investigating the use of pesticides during Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield and (2) the survey used by the telephone interviewers. Respondents statistically represented the U.S. military population in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations betweenAugust 1990 and July 1991. Survey results, reported in MR-1018/12-OSD, Pesticide Use During the Gulf War: A Survey of Gulf War Veterans, characterized pesticide use by U.S. service members, including personal and field use of pesticides, as well as observed pesticide use by others. Information was obtained for living, working, and eating areas for arandomly chosen month of deployment. Results show that the majority of personnel were exposed to some pesticides, and there were differences in use by service: small differences by season and by rank and larger differences by living arrangements. Possible cases of misuse of some pesticides were identified. However, with the exception of the use of fleacollars, these cases could also be attributed to incorrect pesticide identification. The researchers found no evidence of widespread misuse of field pesticides.
Publisher comments
This report documents the survey instrument used to assess theextent of pesticide use during the Gulf War and the letter and otheradvance materials sent out to potential participants. RAND's analysisof the data collected through the survey is reported in Pesticide UseDuring the Gulf War: A Survey of Gulf War Veterans (MR-1018/12-OSD,2000).This research was sponsored by the Office of the Special Assistantfor Gulf War illnesses and was carried out jointly by RAND Health'sCenter for Military Health Policy Research and the Forces and ResourcesPolicy Center of the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI). NDRIis a federally funded research and development center sponsored by theOffice of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unifiedcommands, and the defense agencies.
