VA Study Links Iraq and Afghanistan Deployment to Higher Long-Term Respiratory Disease Risk

Overview

• A matched-cohort analysis compared more than 48,000 deployed veterans with non-deployed peers using Veterans Affairs Corporate Data Warehouse records, excluding anyone with prior diagnoses.
• Deployment was associated with increased new-onset risk over the decade after service: asthma up 55%, chronic rhinitis up 41%, chronic rhinosinusitis up 27%, and nasal polyposis up 48%.
• Authors point to common theater exposures such as burn pits and dust storms as plausible contributors while noting that individual-level exposure data were not available.
• The findings were presented at the 2025 American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology meeting in Orlando and appear in Annals of Allergy Asthma & Immunology.
• The cohort’s median deployment age was 26.7 years with 84% male and 75% White, and the authors stress the results show association rather than causation and warrant further study.