Concerns about access to behavioral health care for military service members and their dependents living in geographically remote locations prompted research into how many in this population are remote and the effects of this distance on their use of behavioral health care. The authors conducted geospatial and longitudinal analyses to answer these questions and reviewed current policies and programs to determine barriers and possible solutions.

Reviews the Los Angeles Fire Department’s hiring practices as of June 2014 and outlines a recommended new firefighter hiring process that is intended to increase efficiency of the hiring process, bolster the evidence supporting the validity of it, and make it more transparent and inclusive.

This report assesses challenges for unit cohesion from integrating women into special operations forces and provides analytical support for validating occupational standards for positions controlled by U.S. Special Operations Command.

This PDF document was made available from rand.org as a public service of the RAND Corporation. Set out to develop ways to predict what determines the targets of suicide attacks, using Israel as a sample, we created a database that coded for sociocultural, political, economic, and demographic factors, then conducted both quantitative and qualitative analyses with an eye to determining what puts a given area at greater risk. The quantitative analysis established that these factors are related to the odds of attack within specific neighborhoods and that the relationships held even when controlling for geospatial factors, so they seem to confer risk for reasons beyond their association with geospatial features of neighborhoods.

The Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 addressed the need for access to timely, high-quality health care for veterans. Section 201 of the legislation called for an independent assessment of various aspects of veterans’ health care. The RAND Corporation was tasked with an assessment of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA’s) current and projected health care capabilities and resources. An examination of data from a variety of sources, along with a survey of VA medical facility leaders, revealed the breadth and depth of VA resources and capabilities: fiscal resources, workforce and human resources, physical infrastructure, interorganizational relationships, and information resources. The assessment identified barriers to the effective use of these resources and capabilities. Analysis of data on access to VA care and the quality of that care showed that almost all veterans live within 40 miles of a VA health facility, but fewer have access to VA specialty care. Veterans usually receive care within 14 days of their desired appointment date, but wait times vary considerably across VA facilities. VA has long played a national leadership role in measuring the quality of health care. The assessment showed that VA health care quality was as good or better on most measures compared with other health systems, but quality performance lagged at some VA facilities. VA will require more resources and capabilities to meet a projected increase in veterans’ demand for VA care over the next five years. Options for increasing capacity include accelerated hiring, full nurse practice authority, and expanded use of telehealth.

With many service members now returning to the United States from the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, concern over adequate access to behavioral health care (treatment for mental, behavioral, or addictive disorders) has risen. Yet data remain very sparse regarding how many service members (and their dependents) reside in locations remote from behavioral health providers, as well as the resulting effect on their access to and utilization of care. Little is also known about the effectiveness of existing policies and other efforts to improve access to services among this population. To help fill these gaps, a team of RAND researchers conducted a geospatial analysis using TRICARE and other data, finding that roughly 300,000 military service members and 1 million dependents are geographically distant from behavioral health care, and an analysis of claims data indicated that remoteness is associated with lower use of specialty behavioral health care. A review of existing policies and programs discovered guidelines for access to care, but no systematic monitoring of adherence to those guidelines, limiting their value. RAND researchers recommend implementing a geospatial data portal and monitoring system to track access to care in the military population and mark progress toward improvements in access to care. In addition, the RAND team highlighted two promising pathways for improving access to care among remote military populations: telehealth and collaborative care that integrates primary care with specialty behavioral care.

"This is a user guide for Diversity Outreach and Recruiting Event Site Selection (DORESS), a piece of software created by RAND to assist the Air Force in identifying diversity outreach and recruiting event sites. By combining user preferences with information on student populations and Air Force locations, DORESS helps users find sites at which to locate events. The populations that users can search for include college students; college students from selective schools; college students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields; college students majoring in STEM fields at schools with U.S. News & World Report-ranked STEM programs; public high school students; and public high school students from highly ranked high schools. Users can then select gender and racial/ethnic groups from within these populations. Users can also see where Air Force bases, Air Force recruiters, and Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) detachments are located. There are three broad functions of this tool: evaluating a specific area, allocation, and planning events. We have also provided a layer for use in Google Earth containing the Air Force data and some of the student data."--Publisher's website.

RAND researchers assess the ability of the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs to support the Afghan Local Police program; evaluate the range of logistics, personnel management, and training activities essential to the success of the program's local security mission; and identify lessons from support to the program that might prove useful when undertaking similar efforts to help build local security forces in the future.