Intro to Field Hygiene and Water

Objectives

Understand the mission of preventive medicine in the field.

Responsibilities

Disease non battle injury

Importance of Preventive medicine in field

Primary Mission

Preserve unit combat effectiveness by providing informed technical information to the Commanding Officer or Officer in Charge concerning preventive medicine:

Conducting sanitation and habitability inspections.Advising the command concerning health risks and recommend how to reduce risks.Provide training to personnel in preventive medicine and other related topics.

Responsibilities

Unit Commanders are ultimately responsible for overall health and safety of their personnelPreventive medicine responsible for:

Identify and eliminate possible health threatsPerform outbreak investigations associated with communicable diseases

Responsibilities

Preventive medicine responsible for:Conduct sanitary surveys to identify problems and recommend corrective actionProvide in-service training to medical and nonmedical personnel concerning relevant preventive medicine topicsCompile and provide relevant medical intelligence briefings to the unit commander and to command personnel as appropriate

Responsibilities

All personnel must do all they can to preserve their own well being and promote the health of their unit or command by practicing good personal hygiene and following sound camp/field sanitation procedures.

Maintain personal hygiene standards

Disease Non Battle Injury

Persons who are lost to an organization by reason of disease or injury, and who are not a battle casualtyIncludes, personnel dying of diseases or injury due to accidents directly related to the operation or mission to which they were deployed

Importance of Preventive Medicine

Most important aspect is to be able to reduce Disease Non Battle Injury (DNBI).Ex: Heat and cold injuries can take heavy tolls on the battlefield.

During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, 20,000 deaths due to heat were reported when troops were isolated from their sources of water. Cold injuries caused over 90,000 hospital admissions in WWII.

Types of DNBI

Heat and Cold Injuries

Heat is the most lethal of all factors working against field forces

Cold is incapacitating

Arthropods and other animals

Food and water borne diseases

Noise

A constant threat

Review

1. Who is overall responsible for all troops in the field?2. What are some preventive medicine responsibilities?3. What are all personnel responsible for?4. What is DNBI? And types?5. What is the overall mission of Preventive medicine in field

conditions?