A report released today by Wounded Warrior Project is highlighting the unique experiences and challenges women veterans face after service, including loneliness, accessing health care and having a harder time transitioning back into civilian life than their male counterparts.
Findings in the 2023 Women Warriors Report come from data collected during nine focus group discussions with wounded women warriors and quantitative data from the WWP's 2022 Annual Warrior Survey. Responses from 5,100 wounded women veterans and more than 13,300 wounded male veterans were used in the Women Warriors Report.
“There's not one specific issue where we need to focus our efforts — women warriors are facing unique challenges across the board with regards to overall health and wellness, and these issues are all interconnected," said WWP Chief Program Officer Jen Silva.
Of those surveyed, 73% of the injured women veterans reported feeling lonely or isolated, compared to 65% of the wounded male veterans.
“Combine that fact with high rates of anxiety and depression as well as three in ten reporting having suicidal thoughts in the past 12 months and it’s sobering,” said said WWP Vice President of Program Partnership and Operations Tracy Farrell.
The report also found that 64.9% of the female veteran respondents experienced sexual harassment during their time in the service, compared to 5.1% of the male veterans who responded.
In addition, 53.2% of wounded female veterans had difficulty or delayed getting care for physical injuries or problems. They also reported higher levels of both anxiety and depression than wounded male veterans.
WWP’s research found that injured women veterans face greater financial challenges than their male counterparts.
“Despite women warriors seeking out education at higher rates than male warriors, women warriors have higher unemployment rates (10% vs 6.3%),” Farrell said. “The most common reasons cited for this are childcare and family responsibilities. Additionally, half of women warriors report living paycheck-to-paycheck, over 65% did not have enough money to make ends meet in the past 12 months, and 40% met the threshold for being food insecure – nearly 4 times higher than what’s seen in the general U.S. population.”
The report was released to help policymakers better support female veterans and also makes a series of recommendations for additional research and new policies for Congress, the Department of Veterans Affairs, volunteer service organizations, and others to undertake to further support women veterans.
To read the report in full, visit here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.