Empowered Veteran Index (EVI)

1. Abstract

The Empowered Veteran Index (EVI) (McDaniel et al., 2023) is an advanced, multidimensional psychometric instrument developed to assess psychosocial reintegration outcomes, personal adaptation, and holistic empowerment among military veterans transitioning from active service to civilian life. Historically, post-military readjustment literature has disproportionately emphasized a deficit-based paradigm focused almost exclusively on clinical pathology, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder, traumatic brain injury, and substance misuse. In contrast, the EVI operationalizes veteran reintegration through a strengths-based, health promotion framework. Grounded in formative qualitative research conducted in partnership with veteran members of the civic service organization The Mission Continues (TMC), the EVI was developed across an iterative, two-stage methodological protocol. An initial candidate pool of 65 Likert-type items was subjected to rigorous psychometric evaluation using a nationwide sample of United States Armed Forces veterans.

Following item reduction protocols employing ordinary least squares exploratory factor analysis (OLS-EFA) and the elimination of low-loading (< 0.40) or cross-loading items, the final EVI was established as a 35-item scale structured across three correlated latent dimensions: Personal Growth, Connectedness, and Community Impact. Items are rated on a standard 7-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree), with higher cumulative and subscale scores denoting elevated levels of veteran empowerment and successful civilian readjustment. The instrument exhibits exemplary psychometric properties: the overall scale demonstrates an internal consistency reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of .96, with individual subscale alphas ranging from .90 to .95, and qualitative inter-rater reliability yielding 85% agreement. Structural validity was confirmed via robust fit indices (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] = 0.06; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] = 0.03). The EVI represents a vital contribution to clinical assessment, military transition programming, and public health surveillance.

2. Keywords

Empowered Veteran Index, military-civilian transition, psychosocial reintegration, veteran empowerment, personal growth, social connectedness, community impact, psychometrics, strengths-based assessment, military psychology

3. Authors

The Empowered Veteran Index was developed and psychometrically validated by an interdisciplinary team of researchers and veteran advocacy practitioners specializing in public health, social work, and behavioral medicine:

• Justin T. McDaniel, Ph.D. — School of Human Sciences, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois, United States. (Correspondence: [email protected]; 475 Clocktower Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901).
• Gina Rosen, Ph.D., MSW — Opportunity@Work, Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
• David L. Albright, Ph.D., MSW — School of Social Work, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States.
• Mary York, M.S. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois, United States.
• Kyle Miller, Ph.D. — Department of Population Science and Policy, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield, Illinois, United States (ORCID: 0000-0002-7675-3215).
• Heather Pekios, M.A. — The Mission Continues, St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
• Shivam Kundan, M.S. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois, United States.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Empowered Veteran Index (EVI) is to provide an empirically grounded, strengths-based measurement tool capable of evaluating the psychosocial health, community integration, and holistic well-being of former military personnel. Over two decades of sustained combat operations following the events of September 11, 2001, catalyzed significant scholarly and institutional interest in the reintegration trajectories of returning service members. However, the vast majority of historical military transition scales focus almost exclusively on psychological distress, physical impairment, disability status, or maladaptive coping strategies. While identifying clinical symptomatology is vital for acute triage, deficit-oriented measurement models fail to capture the flourishing, resilience, leadership capability, and community contributions characteristic of thriving veterans.

Psychosocial reintegration is an inherently complex, multidimensional transition during which individuals must renegotiate their personal identities, re-establish social support systems outside the rigid cohesion of military units, adapt to civilian employment or educational settings, and cultivate a renewed sense of purpose. When veteran assessments only index symptoms of trauma or pathology, program evaluators and healthcare clinicians are left without validated metrics to gauge positive psychological outcomes, health maintenance behaviors, social capital, or civic engagement. The EVI was explicitly constructed to address this methodological void by operationalizing veteran empowerment as a positive, measurable construct that encompasses internal psychological vitality, interpersonal bonding, and prosocial community agency.

In clinical practice, the EVI serves as a functional assessment inventory for health psychologists, social workers, and clinical case managers within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and private healthcare networks. Rather than serving merely as a diagnostic screening tool for mental disorders, the EVI allows clinicians to map a veteran’s protective resources, track treatment-related functional recovery, and identify specific domains where psychosocial rehabilitation may be stalling. In community, non-profit, and governmental settings—such as veteran service organizations (VSOs), higher education transition offices, and workforce reintegration initiatives—the EVI operates as a standardized programmatic evaluation metric. Stakeholders can deploy the EVI in pre- and post-intervention research designs to quantitatively determine whether mentorship programs, civic service fellowships, or recreational wellness interventions successfully cultivate subjective empowerment, mitigate social alienation, and promote sustained community reintegration.

5. Psychological Construct

The theoretical architecture of the Empowered Veteran Index defines veteran empowerment as an interactive, multidimensional state wherein a military veteran successfully achieves self-directed personal agency, cultivates meaningful interpersonal attachments, and actively applies their operational skills and values toward civilian community enhancement. The EVI delineates this global construct into three primary latent dimensions:

1. Personal Growth

The Personal Growth dimension captures an individual’s proactive engagement with self-improvement, continuous learning, cognitive flexibility, psychological resilience, and positive lifestyle health behaviors. Transitioning from the structured hierarchy of military life into civilian autonomy requires self-regulatory stamina and personal initiative. Within the EVI, personal growth extends beyond abstract psychological curiosity; it encompasses tangible actions taken to acquire new vocational, interpersonal, and recreational competencies. Illustrative facets include:

• Self-Efficacy and Skill Acquisition: The drive and deliberate effort to acquire novel capabilities for the workplace, social spheres, and independent hobbies (e.g., actively seeking professional development, embracing difficult challenges, and setting concrete self-improvement goals).
• Adaptive Coping and Psychological Stamina: The capacity to navigate adversity without relinquishing life ambitions, maintaining perspective taking, and managing stress and physical discomfort effectively.
• Holistic Health Behaviors: The maintenance of baseline physiological and health-protective routines necessary for sustained functioning, including adequate sleep hygiene, balanced nutrition, weight management, proactive engagement with medical providers, and the avoidance of high-risk substance use and tobacco.

2. Connectedness

The Connectedness dimension operationalizes the social capital, relational security, and relational networks that veterans develop across both military and civilian domains. Military culture instills profound, combat-tested comradeship characterized by intense interdependence; consequently, the loss of this built-in cohort during transition frequently manifests as acute loneliness, perceived burdensomeness, or social alienation. Connectedness within the EVI assesses a broad spectrum of supportive relationships:

• Primary Social Supports: The quality and stability of emotional bonds with familial relations, intimate partners, and close civilian friends whom the veteran can rely on for mutual assistance.
• Military and Veteran Camaraderie: The retention of peer-level bonds with other veterans who share common service experiences, language, and cultural frames of reference.
• Broader Socio-Cultural Affiliation: Active membership in identity-affirming organizations, professional networking circles, religious or spiritual communities, and neighborhood cohorts that collectively insulate the veteran from social isolation.

3. Community Impact

The Community Impact dimension measures the veteran’s prosocial commitment to civic engagement, altruism, service leadership, and community betterment. During active duty, service members are immersed in a mission-oriented environment where personal sacrifice is tied directly to national or unit objectives. Upon separation, veterans frequently experience an acute loss of purpose. The EVI posits that redirecting this institutional ethos of service toward civilian civic life is fundamental to veteran empowerment. Indicators of community impact include:

• Active Volunteering and Civic Service: Investing personal labor, time, and skills into local municipal improvement, environmental stewardship (e.g., maintaining community parks and public gardens), and anti-poverty or food distribution efforts.
• Civic Leadership and Mentorship: Serving on local governing committees, leading community-based projects, mentoring younger or transitioning individuals, and remaining open to receiving guidance from senior civilian mentors.
• Transcendence and Collective Agency: Experiencing a subjective alignment with initiatives larger than the self, pooling collaborative resources with neighbors to execute systemic change, and mobilizing civic capital to enhance the well-being of vulnerable populations.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual formulation of the Empowered Veteran Index integrates principles from several foundational paradigms in psychology, sociology, and public health: Psychological Empowerment Theory, Self-Determination Theory (SDT), Social Capital Theory, and the Life Course Perspective on military transitions.

Central to the index is Marc A. Zimmerman’s Psychological Empowerment Theory (Zimmerman, 1995), which posits that empowerment is an active, participatory process through which individuals gain mastery over their affairs, participate in democratic decision-making, and achieve critical awareness of their socio-political environment. Zimmerman structured empowerment across three interrelated components: the intrapersonal (how people think about their capacity to influence social contexts), the interactional (the knowledge and skills needed to understand and successfully navigate the environment), and the behavioral (actions taken to exert control through civic participation or community involvement). The EVI directly maps onto this architecture: Personal Growth reflects the intrapersonal and interactional mechanisms of self-efficacy and health maintenance, while Community Impact operationalizes the behavioral domain through voluntary civic participation and grassroots leadership.

Complementing empowerment theory is Self-Determination Theory, formulated by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan (Deci & Ryan, 2000). SDT maintains that psychological vitality, optimal functioning, and post-traumatic thriving require the continuous satisfaction of three universal, basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In a military context, external structures strictly dictate individual autonomy and enforce relational bonds. Transitioning service members often undergo a profound disruption in need satisfaction. The EVI measures the degree to which veterans restore these self-regulatory needs within the civilian sphere: competence is reflected in learning and goal achievement (Personal Growth), relatedness is indexed through diverse civilian and veteran peer networks (Connectedness), and autonomy is realized when veterans autonomously choose to invest their agency in community improvement (Community Impact).

Furthermore, the instrument incorporates Robert Putnam’s (Putnam, 2000) sociologic model of Social Capital, particularly distinguishing between “bonding” social capital (in-group ties among individuals sharing similar backgrounds, such as veteran-to-veteran camaraderie) and “bridging” social capital (out-group ties across broader demographic divides, such as civilian neighborhood networks, inter-ethnic groups, and civic committees). Finally, drawing upon the Life Course Perspective (Elder et al., 2003), military service is understood as an influential historical trajectory; post-service reintegration is not treated as a static event of medical discharge, but rather as an evolving, longitudinal developmental process wherein structural opportunities and individual agency converge to determine long-term civilian flourishing.

7. Validity

The Empowered Veteran Index underwent extensive psychometric validation procedures across two developmental studies described by McDaniel and colleagues (2023), establishing strong evidence for content, construct, and convergent validity.

Content Validity and Qualitative Grounding

To establish comprehensive content validity, the instrument’s initial item pool was directly derived from rigorous qualitative methodologies rather than purely speculative theoretical item drafting. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with active military veteran members affiliated with The Mission Continues, a national non-profit organization dedicated to empowering veterans through community-based volunteer service. The qualitative inquiry explored veterans’ subjective definitions of successful readjustment, perceived barriers to reintegration, sources of meaning, social networking needs, and the personal rewards derived from civic service. Qualitative transcripts underwent systematic thematic analysis by two independent investigators, generating high inter-coder agreement. Based on these grounded narrative themes, the authors drafted an initial 60-item instrument, subsequently adding 5 items to capture emerging sub-constructs, yielding a 65-item pilot version spanning personal growth, social connectedness, and community impact.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was evaluated using a nationwide validation sample of individuals who had completed active military service in the United States Armed Forces. The construct validity of the hypothesized tripartite model was tested via exploratory factor analytic techniques. In accordance with classical psychometric measurement criteria, items exhibiting low primary factor loadings (< 0.40) or demonstrating substantial cross-loadings across divergent dimensions were systematically identified and removed. Thirty items failed to meet these stringent retention thresholds, resulting in an optimized 35-item structural model. The retained items demonstrated clean, unambiguous structural alignment with their designated theoretical latent variables.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Evidence for convergent validity was established during the iterative factor analytic process. In the final Ordinary Least Squares Exploratory Factor Analysis (OLS-EFA), every single retained item achieved a primary standardized factor loading of $lambda ge 0.40$, indicating that each manifest item accounts for a statistically significant and theoretically meaningful proportion of variance within its respective latent construct. The structural coherence of the three distinct dimensions—Personal Growth, Connectedness, and Community Impact—alongside moderate inter-factor correlations, supports discriminant validity between the subscales while substantiating their collective contribution to higher-order veteran empowerment. Initial validation demonstrated that higher EVI scores aligned with theoretical expectations of psychological readjustment, social reintegration, and general civilian life satisfaction.

8. Reliability

The Empowered Veteran Index possesses outstanding reliability metrics across both qualitative developmental stages and quantitative psychometric field testing, demonstrating high internal consistency and measurement precision.

Internal Consistency Reliability

The quantitative evaluation of the 35-item finalized EVI demonstrated exceptional internal consistency reliability across the entire instrument and within each isolated latent dimension:

• Full-Scale EVI: The total 35-item scale demonstrated an overarching Cronbach’s alpha of $\alpha = .96$. This indicates high internal consistency and suggests that the instrument produces stable, homogeneous score interpretations across the aggregate empowerment construct.
• Personal Growth Subscale: Internal consistency coefficients for the individual factors demonstrated high stability, with subscale alpha values ranging from $.90$ to $.95$. The Personal Growth dimension exhibited robust homogeneity across diverse self-efficacy, health behavior, and resilience items.
• Connectedness Subscale: The Connectedness factor similarly yielded an internal consistency coefficient exceeding $.90$, affirming that items assessing peer camaraderie, familial support, and broader social bridging reflect a unified relational construct.
• Community Impact Subscale: The Community Impact factor achieved an alpha coefficient of approximately $.94$–$.95$, demonstrating that diverse forms of civic participation, volunteer labor, and mentorship scale consistently.

Inter-Rater Reliability

During the preliminary qualitative phase of the research, inter-rater reliability (IRR) was rigorously evaluated during the thematic coding of veteran semi-structured interview transcripts. Two independent analysts (JTM and DLA) evaluated and categorized veteran narrative statements into operationalized thematic bins corresponding to reintegration domains. The coding framework yielded an inter-rater reliability rate of 85% agreement, surpassing conventional qualitative thresholds and confirming that the theoretical categories underpinning the EVI items were distinct and replicable.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality and item functioning of the Empowered Veteran Index were investigated through rigorous Ordinary Least Squares Exploratory Factor Analysis (OLS-EFA) using data obtained from a diverse nationwide sample of U.S. military veterans.

Exploratory Factor Analytic Protocol and Item Reduction

Factor extraction was conducted using Ordinary Least Squares estimation, which is robust against moderate departures from multivariate normality frequently observed in psychological Likert-type survey data. In the initial exploratory extraction of the 65-item pilot instrument, the sample correlation matrix was examined to determine latent dimensionality. Criteria for item retention or removal were pre-specified according to rigorous psychometric standards: items were flagged for elimination if (a) their primary factor loading failed to reach a magnitude of 0.40, or (b) they demonstrated significant cross-loadings onto non-target latent constructs with loading discrepancies under 0.15.

Through this iterative trimming procedure, exactly 30 items were systematically removed. The eliminated items encompassed statements that either exhibited statistical indeterminacy, excessive conceptual overlap across constructs, or failed to adequately distinguish veteran-specific empowerment from general lifestyle habits. For example, several narrow nutritional metrics (e.g., eating specific cup measurements of fruits or vegetables daily), general demographic status markers (e.g., living near a military installation, having a stable income source), and vague social behaviors (e.g., standard social media browsing) failed to load cleanly onto the primary factors and were excluded from the final instrument.

Latent Structure, Eigenvalues, and Model Fit

Following item trimming, a clean 35-item, three-factor latent structure emerged. The three extracted factors exhibited substantial statistical strength, with initial eigenvalues well above the Kaiser criterion threshold of 1.0:

• Factor 1 (Personal Growth [PG]): Initial Eigenvalue = 8.11, accounting for the largest share of common variance among the items.
• Factor 2 (Connectedness [C]): Initial Eigenvalue = 5.50, representing a robust secondary relational dimension.
• Factor 3 (Community Impact [CI]): Initial Eigenvalue = 4.92, confirming a distinct prosocial and civic service latent dimension.

Global goodness-of-fit statistics for the final 35-item three-factor structural model verified an acceptable fit to the veteran sample data. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation yielded an RMSEA value of 0.06 (falling within the standard threshold of $le 0.06$ for acceptable model fit). Furthermore, the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual demonstrated an outstanding fit with an SRMR of 0.03, substantially below the conservative cut-off benchmark of 0.08. Factor loadings for all 35 retained items were $ge 0.40$. The authors recommended that future studies confirm this configuration via Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across broader international veteran cohorts.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration characteristics, structural format, and scoring procedures of the Empowered Veteran Index are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Empowered Veteran Index (EVI)
• Primary Reference: McDaniel, J. T., Rosen, G., Albright, D. L., York, M., Miller, K., Pekios, H., & Kundan, S. (2023)
• Test Type: Original psychometric inventory / self-report survey questionnaire
• Target Population: Human adults (aged 18 years and older) who have previously served in the military / armed forces
• Administration Modality: Self-administered (paper-and-pencil or computerized/online survey platforms)
• Completion Time: Approximately 8 to 12 minutes
• Total Retained Item Count: 35 items (derived from an initial 65-item developmental pool; 30 items dropped due to low loading < 0.40 or cross-loading)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert response scale scored as follows:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neutral
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Subscale Allocation (Final 35-Item Version):
  • Personal Growth (PG): Assesses skill acquisition, self-directed goals, adaptive stress and pain management, sleep quality, and health self-regulation. (Contains reverse-scored items).
  • Connectedness (C): Assesses interpersonal networks, non-veteran and veteran friendships, mutual support, value sharing, and professional/cultural affiliations.
  • Community Impact (CI): Assesses voluntary community service, anti-poverty aid, park and environmental restoration, community project donations, and bidirectional mentorship.
• Scoring and Directionality:
  • Negative items must be reverse-coded prior to composite score calculation (e.g., $1 to 7, 2 to 6, 3 to 5, 4 to 4, 5 to 3, 6 to 2, 7 to 1$). In the original item pool, examples of reverse-coded items include: “I have thoughts of hurting myself” and “I do not have a healthy diet”.
  • Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum of all retained items within each respective domain.
  • The Total EVI composite score is calculated by summing or averaging all retained items across the three subscales.
  • Interpretation: Higher aggregate scores indicate greater levels of veteran empowerment, robust psychosocial adaptation, and thriving civilian reintegration.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Empowered Veteran Index (EVI) was formally published in 2023 in the peer-reviewed literature. Details regarding intellectual property, fees, and utilization terms include:

• Publication Year: 2023
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial
• Fee: Free of charge / no licensing fees for academic, research, or instructional purposes
• Permissions: The authors permit use for research and educational purposes. Researchers, healthcare institutions, and veteran-serving non-profit organizations may utilize the instrument without royalty fees, provided proper attribution and bibliographic citation are accorded to the original publication (McDaniel et al., 2023).
• Correspondence and Permissions Contact: For inquiries regarding large-scale programmatic deployment, institutional adaptation, or electronic medical record integration, correspondence should be directed to the lead author: Justin T. McDaniel, Ph.D., School of Human Sciences, Southern Illinois University, 475 Clocktower Drive, Carbondale, Illinois, 62901, USA (Email: [email protected]).

12. References

• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
• Elder, G. H., Johnson, M. K., & Crosnoe, R. (2003). The emergence and development of life course theory. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the Life Course (pp. 3–19). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48247-2_1
• McDaniel, J. T., Rosen, G., Albright, D. L., York, M., Miller, K., Pekios, H., & Kundan, S. (2023). Validity and reliability of the Empowered Veteran Index among military veterans. Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion, 4(2), 167–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/26320770231167355
• Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster. https://doi.org/10.1145/358916.361990
• Zimmerman, M. A. (1995). Psychological empowerment: Issues and illustrations. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(5), 581–599. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00930023

13. Items of the Scale