Defense Health Care: Improvements Needed in Occupational and Environmental Health Surveillance during Deployments to Address Immediate and Long-term Health Issues;Rept. to Congress

摘要

Following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, research and investigations into the causes of service members' unexplained illnesses were hampered by inadequate occupational and environmental exposure data. In 1997, the Department of Defense (DOD) developed a military wide health surveillance framework that includes occupational and environmental health surveillance (OEHS)-the regular collection and reporting of occupational and environmental health hazard data by the military services. GAO is reporting on (1) how the deployed military services have implemented DOD's policies for collecting and reporting OEHS data for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and (2) the efforts under way to use OEHS reports to address both immediate and long-term health issues of service members deployed in support of OIF.