Military occupational and environmental health: challenges for the 21st century

In May 2010, a Symposium and Workshop entitled "Assessing Potentially Hazardous Environmental Exposures among Military Populations" was held in Bethesda, MD. Participants were particularly interested in environmental exposures that are challenging to identify and characterize and that may be associated with a delayed health impact. Speakers and discussion groups reviewed past exposures and the ability of the U.S. military to: predict, identify, quantify, and prevent or mitigate potentially harmful exposures; identify, assess, and follow up military members potentially exposed; accurately determine risks of disease or injury and actual health outcomes; and expeditiously and effectively communicate to military and other leaders needed interventions, individual risks and data to support or refute associations between exposures and health outcomes. Improvements in military capabilities and shortcomings were evaluated using reports on strategies to protect the health of deployed U.S. Forces that were published by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council in 1999-2000. Significant improvements have occurred, but many shortcomings need attention.