One health and force health protection during foreign humanitarian assistance operations: 2010 Pakistan flood relief

Restrictions on the number of troops that could enter Pakistan in support of the 2010 flood relief efforts limited the type and number of deployed medical personnel. Although this created the potential for mission gaps, the assigned personnel were able to perform additional functions beyond those normally associated with their particular health specialty to help close these gaps, which was largely made possible due to prior cross-training and predeployment refresher training. Given the rapid and unpredictable nature of disaster response, future foreign humanitarian assistance operations may face similar issues with assigned personnel. Promotion of the One Health concept through instruction and training will help to increase awareness among US Army Medical Department personnel about the roles and functions of health specialties, facilitate the identification of critical gaps during deployments, and provide personnel with the knowledge and skills needed to address them.