Accession Number:

AD1096664

Title:

The Neurological Effects of Repeated Exposure to Military Occupational Blast: Implications for Prevention and Health

Corporate Author:

RAND ARROYO CENTER SANTA MONICA CA SANTA MONICA United States

Report Date:

2018-03-12

Abstract:

There has been growing concern over potential subconcussive neurological injury following repetitive low-level military occupational blast exposure MOB. Examples include heavy weapons training and activities such as breaching. To address this issue, the Seventh Department of Defense DoD State-of-the-Science Meeting SoSM was held March 1215, 2018, at the RAND Corporations offices in Arlington, Virginia. These proceedings include background information on the meeting and its theme, summaries of a systematic RAND Arroyo Center literature review and meeting and poster presentations, and complete working group findings and expert panel conclusions and recommendations. The SoSM expert panel recommended that DoD leaders 1 enforce DoD policies and standards related to low-level MOB 2 develop high-quality research assessing the occurrence of repeated, low-level occupational blast injury 3 plan and complete a large-scale population based longitudinal study of military personnel with long follow-up to assess neurological and general health outcomes after repeated, low-level MOB exposure 4 emphasize research on large animals, including nonhuman primates, as part of the departments animal research initiatives to improve the applicability of findings to humans 5 complete studies that compare extant MOB exposure assessment tools, protective practices, and protective devices with improvement approaches to facilitate incremental gains in safety and outcomes 6 catalogue, map, and make available to researchers, safety programs, and military end users unclassified weapon systemspecific information and service memberspecific load profiles for key military occupations, exposures, and contexts and 7 increase opportunities for embedded scientists to study low-level MOB exposure among training units and in deployed contexts.

Descriptive Note:

Conference Proceedings

Supplementary Note:

Seventh Department of Defense (DoD) State-of-the-Science Meeting (SoSM), 12 Mar 2018, 14 Mar 2018, ISBN 978-1-9774-0206-6

Pages:

0106

Communities Of Interest:

Modernization Areas:

Distribution Statement:

Approved For Public Release;

File Size:

3.32MB