The postwar hospitalization experience of U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War

Background Since the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, many veterans of that conflict have reported diverse, unexplained symptoms. To evaluate the health of Gulf War veterans, we studied their post-war hospitalization experience and compared it with that of other military personnel serving at the same time who did not go to the Persian Gulf. Methods Using a retrospective cohort approach and data from Department of Defense hospitals, we studied hospitalizations of 547,076 veterans of the Gulf War who were serving in the Army, Navy, Ma-rine Corps, and Air Force and 618,335 other veter-ans from the same era who did not serve in the Persian Gulf. Using multivariate logistic-regressio