ABSTRACT
What should we do with all of this information? Is there more to be learned from the data that have been collected than appears in this report? Where do we go from here? These are good questions, because in spite of the huge amount of information provided in this volume, not every question of potential concern to veterans and their families, or to scientists, health-care providers, and public policy planners has been addressed or answered fully. As you have seen in the preceding chapters, we have focused our analyses on answering the specific questions that Congress asked concerning Vietnam veterans. We hope we have been able to do this successfully. However, we also recognize that there are many important questions that were beyond the scope of the Congressional mandate and for which the analyses conducted in this report provide few or limited answers. Fortunately, the NVVRS database was designed with the goal of providing a valuable resource for answering other key questions.
In this chapter, we suggest that further examination of NVVRS data can help to clarify our understanding of a wide range of critical issues, such as the aftermath of exposure to extreme war events; the nature of the syndrome of PTSD; racial and ethnic differences in postwar adjustment; the broader impact of PTSD on individuals and families; paths that veterans take to seek and use mental health services; and ways to improve the assessment of PTSD. We hope that our suggestions for future analysis of the NVVRS data will spark continued interest in examining this rich repository of information on the men and women of the Vietnam generation.
