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The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests (2000)

Chapter: 10 Description of Cohort Characteristics

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Suggested Citation:"10 Description of Cohort Characteristics." Institute of Medicine. 2000. The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9697.
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Page 56
Suggested Citation:"10 Description of Cohort Characteristics." Institute of Medicine. 2000. The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9697.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"10 Description of Cohort Characteristics." Institute of Medicine. 2000. The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9697.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"10 Description of Cohort Characteristics." Institute of Medicine. 2000. The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9697.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"10 Description of Cohort Characteristics." Institute of Medicine. 2000. The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9697.
×
Page 60

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10 Description of Cohort Characteristics Tables 10-1 through 10-6 display characteristics of the participant and refer- ent groups, separately and combined. Based on the cohort selection protocols de- scribed in Chapters 4 and 5, the study population for this report consists of 68,168 veterans who participated in at least one of the five nuclear test series selected for this study and 64,781 veterans who served at the same time but did not participate in any nuclear test. As previously discussed in Chapter 9, race and sex data were not available for the individuals studied. By selecting a referent cohort with similar distribution of other characteristics such as age, branch of service, time of serv- ice, paygrade, and type of military unit we think that the race and sex distribu- tions should be approximately equivalent. Table 10-1 shows the distribution by branch of service; Table 10-2, selection series. Service and series noted are both at the time warranting selection into the study (i.e., for participants, status at time of first participation in one of the five series; for referents, status at time coinciding with selection relative to the corresponding participant). The age variables, displayed in Tables 10-3 and 10-4, all derive from the date of birth for an individual at the start date of the selection series. Typical of an active-duty military population, 63 percent of these cohorts are less than 26 years of age and 87 percent are less than 36 years of age. The set of identifica- tion files from the contractor that prepared the lists of test participants eligible for this study was the major source of birth dates for the participant cohort, fol- lowed by VA databases. Such information was not available for members of the referent cohort; VA data were the primary sources for them. Table 10-5 shows the distribution of military paygrade at the time of selec- tion series participation. The paygrade groupings used in the study analysis are aggregations of the 23 separate potential paygrades (see Appendix E for details). The group of missing paygrades is coded separately because of unknown char- acteristics that might modify these individuals' risks in indeterminable ways. 56

DESCRIPTION OF COHORT CHA~CTEMSTICS Table 10-6 displays the distribution of participant and referent cohort mem- bers across branch of service and selection series. TABLE 10-1. Cohort Member Characteristics: Branch of Military Service Participants (n = 68,168) Referents (n = 64,781) Total (n= 132,949) Service No. % No. % No. % Air Force 12,865 18.9 11,904 18.4 24,769 18.6 Army 26,082 38.3 24,992 38.6 51,074 38.4 Marines 5,000 7.3 4,865 7.5 9,865 7.4 Navy 24,221 35.5 23,020 35.5 47,241 35.5 TABLE 10-2. Cohort Member Characteristics: Selection Series 57 Participants (n = 68,168) Referents (n = 64,781) Total (n= 132,949) Selection Series No. % No. % No. % . . . GREENHOUSE (1951) 9,528 14.0 9,146 14.1 18,674 14.0 UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE (1953) 18,473 27.1 17,776 27.4 36,249 27.3 CASTLE (1954) 15,685 23.0 15,221 23.5 30,906 23.2 REDWING (1956) 12,923 19.0 12,627 19.5 25,550 19.2 PLUMBBOB (1957) 11,559 17.0 10,011 15.5 21,570 16.2 . TABLE 10-3. Cohort Member Characteristics: Age at Start of Follow-Up Participants (n = 68,168) Referents (n = 64,781) Total (n= 132,949) AgeNo. %No. %No. % <2642,972 63.041,131 63.584,103 63.3 226 and <3616,352 24.015,802 24.432,154 24.2 236 and <467,280 10.76,433 9.913,713 10.3 246 and <561,421 2.11,259 1.92,680 2.0 256 and <66137 0.2152 0.2289 0.2 2662 0.04 0.06 0.0 Missing4 0.00 4 00

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DESCRIPTION OF COHORT CHARACTERISTICS TABLE 10-5. Cohort Member Characteristics: Paygrade 59 Participants (in = 68,168) Referents (n = 64,781) Total (n= 132,949) Paygrade Groupings No. % No. % No. % E1-E3, junior enlisted25,067 36.824,761 38.249,828 37.5 E4-E5, midlevel enlisted20,141 29.619,800 30.639,941 30.0 E6-E9, senior enlisted8,223 12.17,946 12.316,169 12.2 W1-W4, warrant officer571 0.8429 0.71,000 0.8 01-03, company officer7,285 10.77,632 11.814,917 11.2 04-06, field officer6,075 8.94,139 6.410,214 7.7 07-010, general officer333 0.562 0.1395 0.3 Missing473 0.712 0.0485 0.4

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More than 200,000 U.S. military personnel participated in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Questions persist, such as whether that test participation is associated with the timing and causes of death among those individuals. This is the report of a mortality study of the approximately 70,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen who participated in at least one of five selected U.S. nuclear weapons test series1 in the 1950s and nearly 65,000 comparable nonparticipants, the referents. The investigation described in this report, based on more than 5 million person-years of mortality follow-up, represents one of the largest cohort studies of military veterans ever conducted.

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