The breadth of environmental hazards facing military personnel represents one of the most systematically understudied areas of occupational health, with implications extending far beyond veteran care to civilian populations exposed to similar toxins. This comprehensive evidence mapping exercise spanning six decades reveals critical patterns in how we understand—and fail to understand—the health consequences of military service.
Researchers identified 36 distinct military cohorts exposed to environmental hazards, ranging from burn pit smoke and depleted uranium to chemical warfare agents and radiation. The systematic analysis categorized exposures across nine domains: combat operations, occupational hazards, base contamination, weapons testing, ship-based exposures, and toxic cleanup operations. This framework reveals both the scope of potential harm and significant research gaps that have persisted for decades.
The findings illuminate a crucial public health reality: military personnel serve as inadvertent sentinels for environmental health risks that often affect broader populations. Burn pit exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, share toxicological profiles with industrial air pollution affecting millions of civilians. Similarly, radiation exposure studies from nuclear testing programs provide insights relevant to nuclear industry workers and communities near contaminated sites. The research gaps identified—particularly around long-term health outcomes and dose-response relationships—represent missed opportunities for both veteran care and preventive public health policy. This systematic approach to cataloging military environmental exposures offers a template for identifying research priorities that could benefit both military and civilian populations facing similar environmental challenges.