Project Update: RSL’s Middle East Scoping Study Underway
Late last year, RSL Australia announced a ground-breaking initiative to assess the impacts on Australian veterans of service in our armed forces between 2002 and 2021, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A research consortium led by Gallipoli Medical Research with Griffith University and the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, was appointed to conduct the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) Scoping Study, and work began in earnest in late January. The RSL has already received its first progress report from the research consortium that shows the project is progressing well and is on time.
The MEAO project is a six-month scoping study intended to inform a proposed in-depth, more representative study of Australian MEAO veterans. While a focus is on service in Iraq and Afghanistan, the research will also look at impacts on veterans and families following deployments in other theatres including Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands.
The scoping study is employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods and is divided into four key phases: an environmental scan and literature review, veteran and families voice workshops, review of Australian MEAO data assets, and finally, the development of the broader research proposal.
The first phase environmental scan and literature review well underway with the research team currently reviewing more than 19,000 pieces of literature from 2001-2025 on veterans and families mental, physical and social health outcomes: traumatic brain injury (TBI), Blast Injury, and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), moral injury. The team is also reviewing all existing data assets that have been undertaken on the MEAO cohort to learn from them, identify research gaps and explore opportunities to build on previous findings, so as to avoid duplication.
The research ethics protocols have been developed and presented to the Departments of Defence and Veterans' Affairs (DDVA) Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) for its expert review and approval.
Planning is well advanced for the second phase veterans and families voice workshops to be conducted in Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth from late March to mid-May. This will involve a diverse representation of the veteran community, including serving and ex-serving veterans, families and others from the veterans’ community. Importantly, the research is being conducted independently while RSL Australia will have input to the workshop composition to ensure that it appropriately represents the MEAO cohort.
The MEAO Scoping Study will be presented to the RSL and released to stakeholders later this year. Following on from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, the RSL views this, and the following broader study as vital steps in enhancing the wellbeing of today’s veteran community and imperative to ensure that Australia properly supports its veterans and their families to avoid the mistakes, neglect and omissions that occurred after the Vietnam War.
