Statistical Study Correlating the Reported Cases of Gulf Syndrome to BattlefieldLocations of Afflicted U.S. Army Personnel During the Iraq-Kuwait War. Part 1. Method to Relate Troop Deployment and the Reported Cases of Gulf Syndrome and Probable Incidence

摘要

The problem that this report addresses is how to relate the U.S. military gridsystem locations in the Kuwait-Iraq-Saudi Arabian theater of operations to the symptoms and diagnoses collectively called the Gulf War Syndrome(s). The question to be answered therefore, is whether a relation exists between a geographic location and the maladies that are medically documented. In order to solve this problem, a procedure is devised for counting the collections of symptoms and diagnoses over the various map grids of the region. Ratios of the number of combatants reporting illness (in any grid) to the total number of combatants (occupying the grid) are discrete probabilities. These are the probabilities of the occurrence of a health condition for the total time period that a military unit occupies a grid. Also described is a method to redefine the Veterans Adminisuation (VA) use of the International Classification of Diseases (the ICD) data classification scheme, in order to replace any arbitrary judgement on the part of a physician by a judgement that presupposes no prior possibility for the existence of a health condition that could occur prior to the combat action and which may be unrelated to the possible batfiefield conditions of exposure.