Other studies have shown that lower socioeconomic status and educational strata factors may predispose PTSD. Minorities also appear to have the poorest prognosis for recovery from PTSD. The well-known negative attitudes of the public toward returning Vietnam veterans contributed mightily to the chronicity of PTSD in later life; attitudes which our currently returning veterans will not have to suffer. I think they could have saved a lot of time and money with just a little common sense.
It seems that the idea of "cause and affect" gets a little lost when there is funding available.
I think there are an overwhelming number of vets, non-vets (i.e. pro-war Red State types) and current military who already figured out how to prevent or reduce PTSD, and probably did so before 1984.
CLearly the mental health profession would rather study and treat rather than prevent or reduce. There's no problem, there's no money, right?
It's easy to see why they're so interested in "being part of the solution", since their "types" are so often also the a significant cause of the problem.
I'd bet the significant majority of "mental health professionals" are Blue Staters.
Cause and effect are indeed confounded in these studies, as it happens that the "risk factors" are not necessarily causative, but statistically predictive--that is, correlated.
I was the director of the VA's National Center for Stress Recovery for several years back in the '80/90's.
The biggest battle we faced in understanding the disorder (and it is a real disorder), was to separate the confounding politico-economic issues unique to the VietNam War/Era from the actual contributing factors which would hold for any war.
The biggest issue was not victimization but the exercise of abusive violence. Guys did stuff they later found they couldn't live with. The Marine in Fallujah, who shot the wounded badguy, is a prime candidate for PTSD--not because he is the subject of publicity, although that doesn't help matters any, but because he sounded like he lost control and acted on pure gut impulse, and killed a guy. I would be the last one to judge him for this, but he will judge himself, regardless.
The chances for this to occur go up as combat exposure goes up, and as the presence of irregulars and civilians in the combat zone make life more dangerous and decisions more hazardous--and the impact more close up and personal.
Other risk factors are predictive of problems with controlling aggressive impulses under stress, like growing up on the street, low intellectual capacity (many GI's in VietNam were borderline IQ), or never learning self-control due to lack of parenting.
As you might guess, I don't see PTSD as a "victim syndrome", which the Blue-staters tend to do, and which makes recovery a much more difficult, expensive and lengthy process.