Appendix B. Before and after changes in mental health
35. Before and after changes in mental health
To analyze whether a deployment has an effect on the mental
health of individuals, we compare whether individuals who are
experiencing a deployment are more subject to experiencing
mental health deterioration. Our primary focus is on differences
after exposure between two similar groups of men. However, as
previous mental health is a good predictor of future mental health,
we are also interested in mental health differences in the two
groups before the exposure. Table B1 shows that the deployed have
significantly more mental health problems – measured with the
combined measures – during the post-deployment period (i.e., 80%
of all mental health problems for the deployed men) than the
matched non-deployed eligible men (72% of all mental health