Professor Receives $960K Grant to Study Reproductive and Child Health Outcomes of Gulf War Veterans.
Professor Receives $960K Grant to Study Reproductive and Child Health Outcomes of Gulf War Veterans
Patricia Janulewicz will lead the first comprehensive study of the intergenerational effects of Gulf War Illness on veterans who continue to experience symptoms more than 30 years after the war.
About 200,000 US veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War (GW) continue to suffer from Gulf War Illness (GWI), a debilitating disorder characterized by a wide range of symptoms, including chronic pain, fatigue, respiratory and gastrointestinal issues, memory loss, and more. Numerous studies have shed light on these invisible symptoms and linked these persistent health problems to veterans’ exposure to toxic chemicals during the war.
While there have been multiple studies on GWI, there is very limited research on the reproductive health of GW veterans. No studies have evaluated the impact of GWI on veterans’ reproductive health, nor how GWI and GW deployment may have affected the health of GW veterans’ children.
A School of Public Health researcher is seeking to fill these knowledge gaps with a new grant from the United States Department of Defense. Patricia Janulewicz Lloyd, associate professor of environmental health, has received a three-year award totaling $964,228 to examine the reproductive, birth, and family health outcomes of Gulf War veterans.
The available research thus far on these issues indicates that GW veterans may experience higher rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as congenital heart defects, and preliminary data suggest that the children of GW veterans may develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at higher rates than children of non-veterans, as well as children of GW veterans without GWI. These findings underscore the need for more thorough research on the reproductive and intergenerational effects of GW service and GWI, Janulewicz says.
“Veterans have been expressing concerns about the potential impacts their GW service and/or resulting GWI may have had on their children for many years now,” says Janulewicz. “This study was designed to address the concerns of our veterans and the research gaps identified by Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, as well as other research groups focused on the health of GW veterans.”
For the study, Janulewicz and a team of researchers will survey 725 GW veterans to better understand the proportion of GW veterans who have experienced fertility challenges or adverse reproductive and birth outcomes such as miscarriage, stillbirth, or preterm delivery. They will also investigate how many GW veterans have given birth to children with birth defects, and whose children born since the GW have experienced developmental disabilities or other persistent health issues.
Through a blood collection in New England, the researchers will establish the first cohort of children of GW veterans, aiming to document and assess their ongoing and overall health since birth.
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