Purdue HHS alumna explores military transitions to improve outcomes for service members, veterans and their families

Written By: Rebecca Hoffa, rhoffa@purdue.edu

Elizabeth Coppola(Photo provided)

Elizabeth Coppola knew she wanted to make a difference for military service members, veterans and their families when she saw friends deploy as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom after high school and later return to civilian life. Now a health scientist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and an associate research scientist in the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, Coppola has continued the work she began during her graduate education in the Purdue University Department of Human Development and Family Science, to better understand rates and patterns of intimate partner violence in relation to military status using data from the Department of Defense-funded Millennium Cohort Family Study.

“In looking at intimate partner violence, there has been very little research done understanding differences in intimate partner violence among service members and veterans,” Coppola said. “What’s really unique and special about the Millennium Cohort Family Study is that because data was collected from participants, regardless of whether or not they’re still serving the military, this study creates an opportunity to essentially disaggregate or better understand intimate partner violence by military status.”

In her dissertation for her PhD, Coppola wanted to understand mental health by military status, which planted the seed for her later work with intimate partner violence. In a post-9/11 world, Coppola saw the need to support service members and their families.

“I saw my friends come back in various levels of adjustment, and some surely fared better than others, but that’s what led me to really think hard about what I can try to do to help support those who have served in the military,” Coppola said. “It really made me want to understand how previous life experiences of military members may potentially lead to differences in adjustment after deployment and what impact military service has on the health and well-being of individuals — with a specific interest in understanding their psychological adjustment.”

During her time in the Purdue College of Health and Human Sciences, Coppola worked with Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, the Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) and her advisor Sharon Christ to explore depression throughout the various transitions military service members face using data from the National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health.

“This study created a really unique opportunity to look at development of these individuals before, during and, in many instances, after military service,” Coppola said. “I ended up working closely with Shelley and Sharon to cultivate this idea for my dissertation in which I sought to identify trajectories of depressive symptoms among those who served in the military before, during and after deployment and essentially compare their symptoms of depressive trajectories to those who did not serve in the military but participated in the same study.”

Christ noted Coppola’s promise and growth throughout her work with military families as a PhD student, which has only continued to advance as she’s embarked on her professional journey with the VA.

“Liz was an outstanding student and collaborator at Purdue,” Christ said. “She is dedicated to doing high-quality work, serving communities and leading others through mentorship and example. Liz is an ideal Purdue alumna who, through her continued excellent research, contributes to the broad esteem of Purdue University.”

In her dissertation work, which was published in November 2024 in Social Science & Medicine — Population Health, Coppola found it particularly interesting that for military service members, depressive symptoms were lower during military service but were later worse after separating from the military. This is the opposite trajectory of those who have never served in the military who often experience decreased depressive symptoms as they get older.

“One thing I thought was really fascinating that I was not expecting was those who served in the military had fewer depressive symptoms later in adolescence — so think late teens into their 20s — relative to their civilian counterparts,” Coppola said. “Another layer of that, because I wanted to do justice telling a story, was that although they had these sharper decreases in depressive symptoms throughout their teens and 20s, they went on to increase in depressive symptoms throughout their 30s and 40s at a steeper rate relative to civilians.

“Differences in social demographic characteristics, so factors such as race, gender, educational attainment, do not account for these differences in depressive trajectories.”

Coppola noted these themes have carried her into her work with the VA in exploring the various stages service members go through from enlisting and active duty to veteran status.

“It’s a really unique opportunity to compare and better understand the experiences of service members relative to those who have separated from military service and went on to transition into veteran status,” Coppola said. “So, there’s some continuity in some of the areas of interest I had in my dissertation, understanding transitions.”

Coppola noted her education from Purdue has remained valuable in helping her distribute her work in meaningful ways.

“From my experience with MFRI, I feel like I gained a lot of training in being able to communicate research to a variety of audiences,” Coppola said. “When I was at Purdue, I also participated in the Center for Families’ Levien Family Policy Internship. That was a fantastic opportunity for me to also learn about the communication piece — so, taking a body of scientific research and digesting it down, distilling it down into some key talking points that can be disseminated with policymakers to help them engage in evidence-based policymaking. That really prepared me to communicate about my research at the VA.”