Causes of Rejection and the Incidence of Defects

Mother’s education and late-life disparities in memory and dementia risk among US military veterans and non-veterans

“…First, healthy individuals may be more likely to serve in the military, meaning the findings of smaller disparities among veterans may be at least partially due to pre-service differences in cognitive abilities. In supplemental analyses, adjusting for common reasons for rejection for military service 32 did not change our conclusions. It also seems plausible that individuals were rejected for military service based on physical health rather than cognitive health, suggesting these outcomes may be less subject to unmeasured confounding than physical health markers.…”

“…We also included indicators for whether this was the respondents’ first cognitive assessment (to account for practice effects with repeated cognitive assessments 31 ) and interview wave year (fixed effect). In supplemental analyses, we additionally adjusted for common reasons for rejection for military service 32 (in the subsample with more detailed childhood health data), as well as additional measures of cSES (continuous father’s education with a missing indicator, and height as an additional marker of childhood social and nutritional circumstances), and for the respondent’s educational attainment (spline with a knot at 12 years, a discontinuity at 16 years, and an indicator for a GED 33 ; Appendix Tables 2b and 3b). We considered a childhood health by veteran interaction term and found no evidence of an interaction in predicting memory or dementia (results available upon request).…”

Military Service, Childhood Socio-Economic Status, and Late-Life Lung Function: Korean War Era Military Service Associated with Smaller Disparities

“…Third, residual confounding is a possibility in this observational study. Because service members need to be physically and mentally fit before joining the armed forces 57 , insufficient control for selection into the military may bias results away from the null 66 . Specifically, we were unable to assess or control for pre-service differences in lung functioning; it is possible that the observed association between military service and lung functioning among veterans from low cSES backgrounds is partially or entirely due to pre-services differences in health.…”

“…We matched veterans to non-veterans on birth year, race / ethnicity (Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and Other Race), cSES (detailed above), self-reported childhood health (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor), youth disability (yes/no), parental smoking (yes/no), childhood smoking (yes/no), and self-reported height in 2010 (as an additional control for childhood social and nutritional factors, median dichotomized). To account for selection into military service, we also matched on common reasons for rejection from military service in World War II 57 : childhood (before age 16) difficulty seeing, learning difficulties, heart trouble, ear problems, psychiatric problems, and depression. Because we matched on coarsened height, we included continuous height in regression models 58 , along with a missing indicator as 0.05% men were missing height data.…”

“…The same covariates were used in all three analytic approaches, however, the operationalization of the variables differed. The OLS models were adjusted for age (linear, quadratic, and cubic terms), race (Non-Hispanic White=reference, Non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and Other Race), self-reported childhood health (excellent=reference, very good, good, fair, poor), youth disability, parental smoking, childhood smoking, and common reasons for rejection from military service in World War II 3 : childhood difficulty seeing, learning difficulties, heart trouble, ear problems, psychiatric problems, and depression. Height in 2010 (linear, quadratic, and cubic terms) was considered an additional control for childhood social and nutritional factors.…”