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Surveillance snapshot: Illness and injury burdens among reserve component members of the U.S. Armed Forces, 2024

Image of 79115947. This Surveillance Snapshot presents 2024 data on the burdens of illness and injury among reserve component members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

9/1/2025

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FIGURE 1. Numbers of Medical Encounters, Individuals Affected and Hospital Bed Days by Burden of Disease Major Category, Reserve Component, U.S. Armed Forces, 2024. This graph presents a series of 25 paired vertical columns, with a corresponding individual marker for each pair of columns. Each grouping of columns and marker represents a major burden of disease category. This figure includes data for all health care provided by both military and civilian sources of care for reserve members of the U.S. Armed Forces. The first column in each pair represents the number of medical encounters attributable to a burden of disease major category among reserve component members in 2024. The second column in each pair represents the number of those individuals affected by that particular disease category. The corresponding marker depicts the number of hospital bed days attributable to that category. The left vertical, or y-, axis measures both the number of medical encounters and individuals affected, in units of 100,000, from zero to 800,000. The right vertical, or y-, axis measures the number of hospital bed days, in units of 10,000, from zero to 50,000. The segments of the horizontal, or x-axis, each represent a burden of disease major category. In 2024, the greatest number of medical encounters by reserve component members was for injury, for which nearly 800,000 reserve component members sought care. The next two categories with the most medical encounters, just over 550,000 each, were mental health disorders and musculoskeletal diseases. The most individuals, approximately 150,000 in both categories, required 792,726 and 341,587 medical encounters for injury and signs, symptoms and other ill-defined conditions respectively. Mental disorders required the greatest number of hospital bed days for reserve component members, just under 25,000 bed days in 2024; maternal conditions required the second highest number of bed days, around 18,900.

FIGURE 2. Percentages of Medical Encounters and Hospital Bed Days by Burden of Disease Category, Reserve Component, U.S. Armed Forces, 2024. This figure consists of two stacked vertical columns that compile the 17 leading major burden of disease categories among reserve component members who received care in 2024 from military and civilian sources combined. The first column depicts medical encounters by percentages, and the second depicts hospital bed days, also by percentages, attributable to the leading major disease categories. Each column totals 100 percent, with an ‘All Others’ category included at the top of each column. The vertical, or y-, axis measures the percentage of the total, in units of 10, from zero to 100 percent. In 2024, the three morbidity-related categories that accounted for over one half of all medical encounters for reserve component members were injury, mental disorders, and musculoskeletal diseases. The same three categories accounted approximately 47 percent of hospital bed days in 2024; maternal conditions, while only comprising 1.8 percent of medical encounters, comprised 23.1 percent of hospital bed days in 2024.

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