VA Study Finds Higher Long-Term Respiratory Disease Risk After Iraq and Afghanistan Deployments

Overview

• Researchers analyzed Veterans Affairs clinical records for 48,800 deployed veterans matched 1:1 to non-deployed peers by birth year, sex, race, and ethnicity.
• Deployment was associated with higher hazards for new diagnoses: asthma HR 1.55, chronic rhinitis HR 1.41, chronic rhinosinusitis HR 1.27, and nasal polyposis HR 1.48, all p<0.0005.
• Follow-up spanned up to a decade after service, capturing outpatient diagnoses or problem list entries in VA records with no prior history of the studied conditions.
• Authors cited burn pits, dust storms, and other airborne hazards as plausible contributors while emphasizing that the observational design does not establish causation.
• The cohort’s median deployment age was 26.7 years with 84% male and 75% White, and the findings were presented at the ACAAI meeting and reported in Annals of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, supporting calls for long-term surveillance and specialized care.