Brit vets better off

last updated 8 January 2015

London

British soldiers returning from Iraq are at lower risk of mental health problems than U.S. vets, a British medical journal reported this week. Nearly 20 percent of U.S. Iraq war veterans reported mental health issues, compared with just 4 percent of British veterans. Researchers at The Lancet attributed part of the difference to experience. Only 10 percent of U.S. soldiers surveyed had been deployed previously, while more than two-thirds of the Brits had served in combat or peacekeeping operations before Iraq. But researchers also noted that the Americans had the more stressful missions, coming under hostile fire almost twice as often as the Brits.