Trajectories of physical function, depressive symptoms, and cognitive performance before and after falls in older adults: A matched multicohort study.

Military sexual trauma (MST) is a continuum of violence from sexual harassment and bullying to sexual assault, perpetrated by serving personnel on other service members during military service (Herriott et al. ). Although there is currently no universally accepted definition of MST, it has been found to disproportionately impact women across military health research globally (Buyse et al., ; Moreau et al., ; Mota et al., ). A US meta-analysis found that 38.4% of serving and formerly serving women reported having experienced MST, over nine times higher than that reported by men (3.9%) (Wilson, ). While both men and women report experiencing MST, the higher number of serving men means that absolute numbers may be comparable, although underreporting remains a prevailing issue for all (Ministry of Defence, , ). MST has been associated with a plethora of negative health outcomes, including physical pain (Shapiro et al., ), gastrointestinal problems (Pulverman & Creech, ), and symptoms of anxiety and depression (MacDermid et al., ). In women veterans specifically, MST has been identified as a potentially leading contributor to military-service linked post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Campbell & Murphy, ; Surís et al., ). Despite the commonalities evidenced across different militaries, the world’s armed forces are not homogeneous. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the impacts of MST within specific national veteran populations (Godier-McBard et al., ). In the UK, a veteran is defined someone who has completed at least one full day in the armed forces and is no longer serving (Burdett et al., ). UK veteran health research has predominantly focused on the male veteran majority, although there are estimated to be over 250,000 women veterans, representing approximately 13% of the total veteran population (National Records of Scotland, ; Office for National Statistics, ). With a target to reach 30% inflow of women to the military by 2030, the number of women veterans in future years is expected to increase, alongside the need to better understand and support this group through and beyond military service (Ministry of Defence, ). With international evidence indicating that MST is likely to be a significant contributor to poor mental health in women veterans, there is a need to build evidence-based interventions and support provision for UK women who have experienced MST. Evidence-based practice integrates research, clinical expertise, and contextual understanding of patient groups to optimize outcomes through robust, consistent, and cost-effective care (Cook et al., ). This requires the transfer of research findings into practice, variously referred to as knowledge transfer, implementation science, and knowledge exchange, to name a few. There are myriad extant models to describe this process of ‘closing the gap’ between research and its real-world operationalization and implementation (Davies et al., ; Strifler et al., ). Current knowledge mobilization (KMb) (the authors’ preferred term) models emphasize a non-linear set of stages that embed research evidence into practice within healthcare and societal ‘systems’ (Durrant et al., ).