This notion of invisibility is something that we've also heard about anecdotally in conversations we've had with women veterans and with partners in other organizations. This committee has also heard about their not feeling like a veteran or not identifying as a veteran, or a reluctance to do so.
In terms of the data that is collected, perhaps it's important to clarify that the challenge we see is with the quality of some of the data that is available. The committee has heard about small sample sizes. This is also something that we are aware of. In many cases, the small sample sizes or low cell counts make it quite difficult to provide findings that are reliable, meaningful and interpretable and that can help us draw conclusions to provide reasonable recommendations or salient conclusions on a particular issue.
Perhaps there's an important question to be asked, not about what data we collect but about what questions we ask. Many of the studies where data is currently available to us, such as the life after service survey, are designed for performance measurement and for surveillance. They are population-based studies that, as you've heard in prior witness statements, give us the ability to compare across the population or compare female veterans to male veterans, but perhaps we need questions about women veterans in their own right—questions that take gender as a category of analysis, that look at the sex- and gender-specific needs of women veterans, that focus exclusively on their experiences, and that are relevant to them.
I hope that's helpful.