Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 May 18;18(10):5395.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18105395.

Occupational Exposures and Environmental Health Hazards of Military Personnel

Marta Geretto  1 , Marco Ferrari  2 , Roberta De Angelis  3 , Filippo Crociata  4 , Nicola Sebastiani  4 , Alessandra Pulliero  5 , William Au  6   7 , Alberto Izzotti  1   8
Affiliations
Review

Occupational Exposures and Environmental Health Hazards of Military Personnel

Marta Geretto et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Military personnel are frequently exposed to environmental pollutants that can cause a variety of diseases.

Methods: This review analyzed publications regarding epidemiological and biomonitoring studies on occupationally-exposed military personnel.

Results: The exposures include sulfur mustard, organ chlorines, combustion products, fuel vapors, and ionizing and exciting radiations. Important factors to be considered are the lengths and intensities of exposures, its proximity to the sources of environmental pollutants, as well as confounding factors (cigarette smoke, diet, photo-type, healthy warrior effect, etc.). Assessment of environmental and individual exposures to pollutants is crucial, although often omitted, because soldiers have often been evaluated based on reported health problems rather than on excessive exposure to pollutants. Biomarkers of exposures and effects are tools to explore relationships between exposures and diseases in military personnel. Another observation from this review is a major problem from the lack of suitable control groups.

Conclusions: This review indicates that only studies which analyzed epidemiological and molecular biomarkers in both exposed and control groups would provide evidence-based conclusions on exposure and disease risk in military personnel.

Keywords: biomarkers; environmental pollution; molecular epidemiology; occupational exposures; soldiers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Possible exposures of military personnel to chemical and physical occupational hazards.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flow chart reporting the procedure used to perform the systematic review.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Halverson M.A.J.K.M., Lewis J.A., Jackson D.A., Chen J., Dennis W., Brennan L., Baer C., Permenter M., Krakauer T. Environmental Hazard In Vitro Biomarker Discovery Tools. Report 2007. [(accessed on 16 May 2021)]; Available online: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ab35/f7390ee57d5395e02ece96cde33e725163....
    1. Wallace M.A., Kormos T.M., Pleil J.D. Blood-borne biomarkers and bioindicators for linking exposure to health effects in environmental health science. J. Toxicol. Environ. Health B Crit. Rev. 2016;19:380–409. doi: 10.1080/10937404.2016.1215772. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bolognesi C., Migliore L., Lista F., Caroli S., Patriarca M., De Angelis R., Capocaccia R. Biological monitoring of Italian soldiers deployed in Iraq. Results of the SIGNUM project. Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health. 2016;219:24–32. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2015.08.001. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Skabelund A.J., Rawlins F.A., 3rd, McCann E.T., Lospinoso J.A., Burroughs L., Gallup R.A., Morris M. Pulmonary Function and Respiratory Health of Military Personnel Before Southwest Asia Deployment. Respir. Care. 2017;62:1148–1155. doi: 10.4187/respcare.05438. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Morris M.J., Skabelund A.J., Rawlins F.A., 3rd, Gallup R.A., Aden J.K., Holley A.B. Study of Active Duty Military Personnel for Environmental Deployment Exposures: Pre- and Post-Deployment Spirometry (STAMPEDE II) Respir. Care. 2019;64:536–544. doi: 10.4187/respcare.06396. - DOI - PubMed