Minnesota National Guard families part of research project

Deployment’s toll on families goes under university's microscope
By MARK BRUNSWICK
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 5, 2012
MINNEAPOLIS — For the next four years, hundreds of military families in Minnesota will submit to wearing heart sensors to monitor the stresses they exert on each other and allow video cameras to record their interactions as part of an extraordinary first-in-the-nation look at the toll exacted by deployments to war zones.

The research, which is being conducted by the University of Minnesota, is aimed especially at gauging the impact on families of Guard and Reserve members, who have made up nearly half of the U.S. forces sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. That number is unprecedented in modern American warfare and is likely to have a ripple effect on family life for years as soldiers return home and resume their civilian lives.

“This is an important window. Minnesota has an opportunity to really share incredible knowledge that will help the next generation of reserve component families,” said Abigail Gewirtz, an associate professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota and the project’s principal investigator.

Minnesota’s demographics work well for the research. Its mostly citizen-soldiers are generally older and more likely to have families than those on active duty. And those families often blend back in to small towns and cities after a deployment without the support system that a military base offers.
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