STUDY TO ASSESS RISK AND RESILIENCE IN SERVICEMEMBERS - LONGITUDINAL STUDY
The original Army STARRS project (2009-2015) and the continuation project STARRS-LS (2014- 2019) were both designed and conducted under the scientific direction and management oversight of CSTS through a collaborative effort involving USU, the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Harvard University, and the University of Michigan.
LEAD FACULTY
Army STARRS included several separate but integrated studies designed to comprehensively examine the mental health and resilience of soldiers including Regular Army, Army National Guard, and activated Army Reserve. It involved large and representative samples of soldiers, making it the largest research study of mental health risk and resilience ever conducted among military personnel.
One of the studies was a historical cohort study of the more than 1.6 million soldiers on active duty from 2004 to 2009. Army STARRS also included cross-sectional studies, a longitudinal study, and case-control studies that involved collecting data directly from more than 100,000 active duty soldiers throughout the U.S. and overseas. The research included questionnaires, neurocognitive tests, blood collection, state-of-the-art genetic and other biomarker assays, and linking these data to extensive, existing Army/DoD administrative records. These efforts produced large and rich datasets to serve the goals of Army STARRS, but can also be used to serve broader goals involving many other outcomes besides mental health.
CSTS is furthering the Army STARRS research through a five-year DoD-funded project called STARRS-LS.
THE MAJOR RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF STARRS-LS
- Continue using the STARRS platforms, systems and data to conduct further analyses, derive further findings, and extract additional value from Army STARRS; and
- Extend, expand, and enhance the STARRS data by obtaining additional Army/DoD administrative data for 2010 to 2015 and designing and conducting a longitudinal follow-up study of a subset of more than 50,000 Army STARRS participants.
Department is working with the Center for Military Precision Health (CMPH) team at USU to perform whole genome sequencing of DNA from tens of thousands of Soldiers who participated in the STARRS research project. This has the potential to transform patient care by producing actionable personalized medicine to generate novel personalized therapeutic options that impact both civilian and military lives.