Strategies to Protect the Health of Deployed U.S. Forces Analytical Framework for Assessing Risks (2000) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 11-18
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From page 11... ...
Following the Persian Gulf War, in which there were few casualties, a large number of unanticipated and still undiagnosed illnesses developed that caused many veterans of that conflict to express concerns about possible exposures to hazardous materials and other potential risk factors associated with their deployment. As a result, a number of task forces and committees, such as the Defense Science Board Task Force on Persian Gulf War Effects, the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, were established and devoted to examining those concerns.
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From page 12... ...
ASSESSING HEALTH RISKS TO DEPLOYED FORCES Assessment of the risk of disease and other health outcomes in military personnel requires specific information on potential causative factors, exposure scenarios, dose-response relationships, and types of health responses expected from contact with an agent, mixtures, or sequences of potentially harmful agents. The purpose of this task was to develop an analytical framework that would facilitate the assessment of such risks to deployed forces.
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From page 13... ...
THE APPROACH TO THE TASK Focusing the Task The request to NAS was to develop an analytical framework for assessing risks from a broad array of threats, including battle injuries, chemical and biological warfare agents, diseases, and non-battle injuries connected with deployment. Included in these threats are the risks of acute and chronic health effects from exposures to chemicals associated with deployment tasks (including prophylactic treatments and protective agents and measures, such as pesticides, that are brought to the theatre by the deployment force itself)
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From page 14... ...
The assessments of individual sources of risk must in the end come together into a comprehensive risk-management program that includes how to behave in the face of the whole array of threats, avoid or ameliorate those threats, balance some risks against others, and weigh achieving mission objectives without entailing unnecessary risks. Thus, despite the diversity of threats and the different technical approaches that might be appropriate to characterize them, they cannot effectively be managed in isolation from one another.
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From page 15... ...
In sum, the approach to defining a framework for risk assessment over the broad array of threats should be one that emphasizes a systematic approach to cataloguing and assessing the various kinds and sources of hazard, encourages attention to the question of unrecognized threats, and approaches the analysis of each kind of threat in the commonality paradigm of risk analysis. Methods In developing the framework, a number of factors and trends were examined that bear on the changing context for risk analysis, and the particular challenges faced by the military, which together prompt a closer examination of what the military can and should do to protect the health and safety of deployed forces.
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From page 16... ...
This panel considered a vast amount of information, including briefings and documentation of current risk assessments provided by DOD, existing risk-assessment paradigms, and six detailed papers commissioned specifically for this task on topics that the principal investigator and advisers identified as needing in-depth analyses. These commissioned papers were presented at a workshop on lanuary 28-29, 1999, in Washington, D.C.: "Approaches for the Collection and Use of Personal Exposure and Human Biological-Marker Information for Assessing Risks to Deployed U.S.
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From page 17... ...
DOD has in place a wide variety of programs and activities for identifying threats, assessing potential exposures and risks, setting exposure standards, and designing equipment, operating procedures, doctrine, and training to manage risk effectively. Ongoing industrial hygiene procedures are carried out, including sampling and monitoring of exposures.
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From page 18... ...
Similarly, many DOD activities fall under the regulatory authority of various federal regulatory agencies, and the role of such regulation in the arena of health protection of deployed troops is not specifically examined. Finally, although a good deal of time was spent debating the question of psychological stress as a threat itself, the lack of established ways to assess the risks of such stress was acknowledged.
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