Report: Not Enough IHs to Track Weapons Blast Exposures
A report published last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) states that a lack of industrial hygiene personnel has affected the efforts of the Department of Defense (DOD) to address brain health effects from weapons blast exposures among service members. The report explains that the use of certain weapons during training or combat can produce high levels of blast overpressure, or “the sudden onset of a pressure wave.” Exposure to blast overpressure can adversely affect brain health and cognitive performance, GAO explains, citing studies in which researchers observed an association between such exposures and health effects like inflammation and alterations in the brain’s function.
DOD and its components—including relevant offices within the department and the Army, Navy, and Air Force—have begun implementing requirements related to blast overpressure that DOD established in 2024 but are facing resource challenges, GAO found. The report notes that officials from the Defense Health Agency, which oversees the industrial hygienists who support the Army and Air Force, reported “not having enough safety personnel—industrial hygienists—available to identify and track service members.” The requirement to track exposures to blast overpressure is intended to ensure that service members have a record of the hazards to which they were exposed while in the military.
“This [exposure] tracking includes qualitative information, such as information about the location, weapons systems, and service member,” the GAO report states. “It also includes quantitative information, such as blast exposure data from sensors.”
The report notes that tracking requirements are set to expand in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, which means that industrial hygiene staffing challenges may persist, particularly for the Army, which has the largest number of service members at high risk of blast overpressure exposure. GAO urges DOD to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the resources needed for industrial hygiene staff to implement the blast overpressure tracking requirements.
According to DOD, which reviewed and commented on the GAO report, the Defense Health Agency “recently completed an enterprise-wide assessment of IH manpower … identifying increased IH manpower requirements across the DHA enterprise.” DOD’s response to GAO further explains that implementing these staffing resources is contingent on future funding.
Further details and a PDF of the full report are available from GAO’s website.
Related: An article published in the January 2017 Synergist discussed another hazard from weapons fire faced by military personnel: impulse noise.