The Military Family Advisory Network is conducting its biennial survey to better understand the needs of military and veteran families worldwide. The survey — the largest independent research effort focused on the military family population — has helped shape major policy and quality-of-life reforms, including the Military Housing Privatization Initiative Tenant Bill of Rights and the creation of a congressional quality-of-life panel for service members and their families.

Unlike many surveys focused on military families, MFAN manages the research process internally from start to finish, which allows the organization to analyze its findings beyond broad, high-level trends.

“We know that there is not one experience that applies for all military families. There are a lot of variations based on where you’re living, based on your family size, based on your rank, based on your branch. And so what we’re able to do is dig into our findings in a way that gives us really concrete and actionable data, so that we’re not trying to boil the ocean with the solutions that we put in place,” Shannon Razsadin, MFAN’s chief executive officer, told Federal News Network.

“It’s very important, and it is very much counted on by a variety of different stakeholders as they shape policy and programs that military families count on,” she added.

MFAN opened the survey in October but paused its outreach efforts during the government shutdown. “We felt that it was too much to ask people in such a time of immense stress to take the time to complete the survey,” Razsadin said.

It has since ramped up outreach and is monitoring response rates to determine when to close the survey. The organization received over 10,000 responses in the last survey cycle. 

Razsadin said MFAN’s research has helped drive several quality-of-life reforms — the Senate Armed Services Committee relied on its study on military housing, which became the “cornerstone” for privatized housing reforms. When the organization’s research first identified food insecurity issues in the military, it launched the One Million Meals Challenge, distributing over a million meals to military families living in places where MFAN’s data showed the highest need.

Further analysis, however, revealed a key driver for food insecurity among military families — a previous study showed that 51% of respondents who had moved in the last two years were food insecure. In response, the organization launched its PCS Restock Program, providing families with household essentials and pantry staples after a permanent change of station move. 

“That’s a tangible example of how MFAN has used our data to drive really important programmatic decisions while at the same time advocating from the policy perspective, because policy takes time, and oftentimes military families don’t have that luxury. These things are about moving on parallel tracks, with the ultimate goal of those intersecting from where programs and policies can meet,” Razsadin said.

“This research effort is for a whole-of-ecosystem approach, because there is no one organization out there, even the government, who can do all things for all people. And so it’s really making sure that we have the data, we are sharing it proactively. We are maintaining the highest levels of institutional review board standards so you can trust this data, that it has gone through the most rigorous review process possible. That has been very helpful for us in making sure this research effort stands up on the Hill, within the Pentagon, to make sure that it can really drive the change possible,” she added.

Issues covered in the survey

The survey examines a wide range of military family wellbeing issues, including finances, housing, childcare and PCS moves, but respondents are only asked questions relevant to their life. Respondents without children, for instance, won’t be asked about education and childcare.

While the survey includes perennial questions asked in every cycle, the organization introduces new topic areas based on feedback from the community. This year, MFAN added questions examining online gambling.

“We’ve heard a lot, and just even outside the military population, online gambling has hit a new level. It is very accessible, and it’s something that we want to understand what’s happening there. But also, what are the intersection points between things like online gambling and financial security? What are some of the intersection points between that and loneliness or social isolation? We’re really interested to see if this is something that is a broad issue or is something that is being consumed at very high levels within the military population, but what also are some of the implications related to that, and what could be some of those drivers that we’ll need to dig deeper into as an organization,” Razsadin said. 

For the first time, MFAN has incorporated methodology designed to produce findings representative of the broader military community. Razsadin said it will allow the organization to speak more confidently about trends across the military population rather than just the experiences of survey respondents.

“It was an intensive effort from a research design perspective, and we’re really looking forward to releasing those findings, and we think that it will give the data even more legs than it had before,” Razsadin said.

MFAN also uses validated measurement scales throughout the survey, which allows the organization to create “apples-to-apples comparisons” between the military population and the civilian population. 

“This allows us to really have data that we can then bring to the Hill and other stakeholders and say, ‘This is how the military population is stacking up as compared to the civilian population,’ which has been really helpful for us in the advocacy work that we do as an organization,” Razsadin said.

Recently, the organization has been focusing its advocacy efforts on increasing military pay and examining the basic allowance for housing, particularly how the system could be made more responsive — and possibly more predictive — to changing housing market conditions. The survey data will shape MFAN’s policy priorities for the next several years.

“It’s so important that we hear from people through this research effort, because it really does shape the future as far as what is discussed within the Pentagon, what is discussed on the Hill, and making sure that the well-being of military families always stays at the forefront as not just a nice-to-have, but as a must-have, and that’s more important now than ever,” Razsadin said.

MFAN plans to release its findings in May.

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