Concerns about access to behavioral health care for military service members and their dependents living in geographically remote locations prompted research into how many in this population are remote and the effects of this distance on their use of behavioral health care. The authors conducted geospatial and longitudinal analyses to answer these questions and reviewed current policies and programs to determine barriers and possible solutions.

This report examines changes in behavioral health care delivered to service members by the Military Health System following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including patterns of care, use of telehealth, and quality of care. The findings and recommendations are intended to inform improvements to behavioral health care in the Military Health System and provide insights into the implications of its ongoing integration of telehealth.

A RAND study, the first to examine care received by a census of active-duty service members diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury in the Military Health System, assessed the number and characteristics of these patients (including deployment history and history of traumatic brain injury), their care settings, the treatments they received, co-occurring conditions, the duration of treatment, and the risk factors for requiring long-term care.