Serving Those Who Serve: The Impact of Military Service on Mental Health and Cultural Considerations in Addressing Military Mental Health Needs

         Military individuals and families have long felt the impact of stressful job responsibilities, deployments, trauma from combat, a lack of resources when returning home to transition into civilian life, and a culture within the military system of stigmatizing help-seeking behaviors. This has contributed to significant rates of PTSD, substance use disorders, suicidal ideation or completed suicide, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, domestic violence, and an overall fragmentation of connection between mental health resources and military individuals and families compared to the general population. In the greater Atlanta area, new reports have surfaced revealing that 30% of mental health calls for help from veterans went unanswered at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs office due to critical lack of staffing. There is also a well-documented concern of the struggle with locating resources for veterans who are seeking help or in immediate need of assistance with mental health services, basic needs such as housing, or suicide prevention. These cultural trends not only impact service members themselves, but their families as well, including spouses and children. This research is a systematic review of existing research on mental health struggles and hardships meeting basic needs for those who have engaged in military service as well as their families, highlighting the current statistical information, the current infrastructure in place to address these long-standing issues, and what is currently lacking specifically in the state of Georgia to address mental health, wellness, and basic needs and concerns of these populations. The goal of this research is to highlight the unique challenges of addressing post-service impacts on our communities to analyze common problems among those who have engaged in military service and how we can better serve those who have served us through the expansion of services that are already in place to address these concerns and education of the available resources to advocate for these populations.