Beginning with the 1990?1991 Gulf War, more than 3.7 million U.S. service members have been deployed to Southwest Asia, where they have been exposed to a number of airborne hazards, including oil-well fire smoke, emissions from open burn pits, dust and sand, diesel exhaust, and poor-quality ambient air. Many service members, particularly those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, have reported health problems they attribute to their exposure to emissions from open-air burn pits on military installations.

In 2013, Congress directed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish and maintain the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit (AH&OBP) Registry to "ascertain and monitor" the health effects of such exposures. This report serves as a follow-up to an initial assessment of the AH&OBP Registry completed by an independent committee of the National Academies in 2017. This reassessment does not include any strength-of-the-evidence assessments of potential relationships between exposures to burn pits or airborne hazards and health effects. Rather, this report assesses the ability of the registry to fulfill the intended purposes that Congress and VA have specified for it.

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Methods and Approach
• 3 Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry Development and Operations
• 4 Other Information Sources on Airborne Hazards
• 5 Use for Etiologic Research
• 6 Use for Population Health Surveillance
• 7 Use to Improve Clinical Care
• 8 Use for Informing VA Policies and Processes
• 9 Use for Supporting Communications and Outreach
• 10 Future Use of the AH&OBP Registry
• Appendix A: Public Law 112-260
• Appendix B: Public Meeting Agendas
• Appendix C: Committee Member and Staff Biographies

Book Information
ISBN 9780309694230
Author National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Format Paperback
Page Count 292
Imprint National Academies Press
Publisher National Academies Press