{"doi":"10.1002/nur.22304","title":"Freedom is not free: Examining health equity for racial and ethnic minoritized veterans","abstract":"“The military of any nation is a reflection of the social milieu within that nation's borders” (Napier, 2021, p. 4). The United States has one of the largest militaries globally, leads the world in military spending, and is currently engaged in deployments from the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa to the Philippines (Biden, 2022). In 2019, there were 17–18 million military Veterans in the United States comprising approximately 7 percent of the adult population (Vespa, 2020). The term Veteran refers to “a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable” (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2019, p. 1). This definition includes anyone who served in any branch of the armed forces (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Space Force) as an active-duty service member or a reservist (i.e., National Guard or reservist in the Army, Navy, or Air Force). There are also various Veteran status types that determine eligibility for benefits programs as outlined by federal government regulations. Veterans who have served less than 20 years and were honorably discharged may be authorized to receive care within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the level of benefit program eligibility is further determined by the presence of service-connected injuries, disabilities, or health conditions. Veterans who have served 20 years or more may qualify to receive care within the VHA, if they have a service-connected condition, and the Defense Health Agency (DHA) which does not require retirees to have a service-related condition. Care within the DHA for military retirees is based on whether there is space available within the system (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2019). The United States has a remarkably comprehensive system of assistance for Veterans that has historically sought to entrench nondiscriminatory practices into its programs. However, adverse societal and policy-driven influences have affected access to and distribution of this assistance (Faber, 2020). It is this history that will be described in the subsequent text. Also, a look towards the future of Veterans' care will be presented. This editorial is a continuation of the Research in Nursing and Health series on “Learning the Language of Heath Equity” (Squires & Thompson, 2021, p. 869). The goal of this editorial is to broaden understanding of health equity issues with a focus on Veterans from racial and ethnic minoritized groups in the United States military. One in four (25%) Veterans in the United States are from these minoritized groups (i.e., American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino of Any Race, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, two or more races, and other races) and they are projected to comprise 40% of the Veteran population by 2045 (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2020). To build the capacity of health professionals to effectively care for Veterans, evidence is provided about Veterans' care in the United States and how it can inform government and healthcare system strategies for advancing health equity among minoritized groups. The history of racial and ethnic minoritized Veterans is used to highlight and provide examples of how structural policies can be implemented to reduce disparities. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is a federal administration with a longstanding history of striving to meet both the medical and nonmedical needs of individuals who have served in the military. The administration is comprised of three subdivisions—VHA, Veterans Benefits Administration, and National Cemetery Administration. The Continental Congress of 1776, during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), provided the first financial pensions to combat soldiers with disabilities. After the Civil War (1861–1865), Veterans homes were established to provide residential care, medical care, and hosp","journal":"Research in Nursing & Health","year":2023,"id":398758,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.951,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1174780,"name":"Roy Thompson","orcid":"0000-0003-1273-1436","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1174781,"name":"Cedonnie A. Curtis","orcid":"0000-0003-2286-1947","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":700496,"name":"Allison Squires","orcid":"0000-0002-5238-2122","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537712,"name":"Bonnie Mowinski Jennings","orcid":"0000-0001-8945-1024","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":438124,"name":"Sarah L. Szanton","orcid":"0000-0001-5418-4982","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1174779,"name":"Tiffany Riser","orcid":"0000-0002-5974-2039","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":7,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:19:47.744358Z","pmid":"36929135","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}