The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) offers Military Environmental Exposure Assessments (MEEAs) to help veterans understand and address potential health risks related to their military service. MEEAs identify and document a veteran's military environmental exposures to inform their healthcare decisions. By understanding your exposure history, your care team can better assess your risk of disease, identify the right diagnostic tests, and schedule those tests appropriately. MEEAs support early diagnosis and ongoing care for symptoms or conditions potentially related to military exposures.
MEEAs replace the older environmental health registry exams and offer a more comprehensive and tailored approach. They are designed to capture more detailed information about your specific exposures, including chemicals, pollutants, contaminated water, radiation, and other toxic substances. MEEAs go beyond a simple registry and enable long-term tracking of potential health effects and supports ongoing research efforts.
Key benefits of MEEAs
-
Better Healthcare Decisions: MEEAs provide valuable information to care teams, leading to more informed decisions about disease risk assessment, diagnostic testing, and treatment plans.
-
Early Diagnosis and Proactive Care: By documenting potential exposures, MEEAs can facilitate early diagnosis and proactive care for conditions related to those exposures.
-
Support for Disability Claims: While not required for a VA disability claim, MEEAs can provide supporting documentation of deployment and exposure history in a veteran's medical record. Note: MEEAs do not include disability claims, prescriptions, or treatment. They are primarily focused on documenting exposure history to inform healthcare decisions.
-
Longitudinal Surveillance: Because the MEEA documents what you were exposed to during your service, the "longitudinal surveillance" allows the VA to track how those exposures may affect your health over the years to come. This helps them identify potential long-term health problems, improve treatment strategies, and potentially contribute to research on the health effects of military exposures.
Take action
The MEEA program is run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, not the Coast Guard. This means you need to contact the VA directly to learn more and apply. The Coast Guard supports its veterans, but the MEEA falls under the VA's purview. Any veteran enrolled in a VA facility is eligible to receive a MEEA. Recent legislation expanded eligibility for VA healthcare and benefits based on potential environmental exposures. There are two ways to schedule your MEEA:
Environmental Health Program at your local VA facility
Veterans Exposure Team – Health Outcomes Military Exposures (VET-HOMES)
Disclaimer: This information is for general knowledge only and should not be considered legal or medical advice. Consult with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and qualified professionals to determine eligibility for PACT Act benefits based on individual circumstances.
-USCG-