Strategies to Protect the Health of Deployed U.S. Forces Analytical Framework for Assessing Risks (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-10
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From page 1... ...
The health consequences of physical and psychological stress, by themselves or through interaction with other threats, are also increasingly recognized. In addition, the military's responsibility in examining potential health and safety risks to its troops is increasing, and the spectrum of health concerns is broadening, from acute illness and injury due to pathogens and accidents to possible influences of low-level chemical exposures, which can manifest themselves in reproductive health and chronic illnesses years later, perhaps even after cessation of military service.
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review and evaluate technology and methods for physical protection and decontamination, particularly of chemical and biological agents; and (4) review and evaluate medical protection, health consequences management and treatment, and medical record keeping.
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Threats to deployed forces can be assessed with the tools developed in the civilian risk-assessment context, but it must be recognized that the military context differs. Many hazards are specific to military situations, military exposure factors can differ from those relevant to civilians, and stress and extreme environments can affect toxic responses.
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It is provisionally suggested that they should include minimizing the impact of disease and non-battle-related injuries; developing a straightforward and systematic program to address risks and executing the program efficiently; diligently and competently addressing health and safety threats; integrating risk awareness and the appropriate weighing of risks and benefits into decision-making; improving the ability to characterize risks posed by past exposures; and doing all the foregoing in the light of cost and effects on military capability and effectiveness. The recommended framework attempts to bring the methodology of risk assessment to bear on these objectives.
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From page 5... ...
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRAMEWORK The recommended framework is a structured approach to gathering, organizing, and analyzing information in a way that encourages a comprehensive, integrative assessment and response to the threats that deployed troops might face. Unlike more traditional risk assessments, the recommended framework is concerned with examining activities (such as deployment near an industrial facility that stores various toxic chemicals)
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Ongoing preparation has four steps: anticipating potential threats and the circumstances under which they might arise, setting priorities among the potential threats for analysis, conducting qualitative and quantitative risk analyses of the threats, and incorporating the resulting risk estimates into exposure guidelines and planning. In the first step, established lists of hazardous threats (such as toxic chemicals, infectious disease agents, insecticides, and vaccines)
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The key activities associated with this phase are implementing plans made in anticipation of deployment (ongoing strategic baseline preparation and planning) , refining them with information peculiar to the specific deployment, noting the advent of threatening exposures, and activating the appropriate parts of the response plans accordingly.
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From page 8... ...
Surveillance of veterans' health should be continued, and uncertain outcomes should be investigated with exposure reconstruction and epidemiologic analyses. Much of the information obtained about threats during this phase of the framework can be used to refine the ongoing strategic baseline risk analyses by providing a deeper understanding of known threats and by identifying threats not previously considered.
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· Examine patterns of composure to various threats; because deployment is characterized by many simultaneous exposures, develop methods to assess possible effects of combinations of threats and their interactions with stress; and develop methods to identify the combinations that should receive further scrutiny based upon biological considerations, because they are peculiar to specific kinds of deployment, or because of particular DOD responsibilities. · Make special efforts to identify previously unrecognized hazards by examining deployment activities and settings for potential threats and by identifying scenarios that might lead to hazardous exposures.
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From page 10... ...
· Conduct annual health evaluations of reserve and active-duty personnel to obtain baseline health information, as recommended in the companion TOM report addressing medical surveillance. · Develop an explicit framework for risk-management decision-making that would use information obtained from the application of the risk-assessment framework.
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