Environmental health risk assessment methodology for overseas military deployment

The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health is developing a framework for evaluating environmental health risks that may affect the health of military personnel deployed overseas. Based on quantitative risk assessment, traditional public health evaluation, and risk prioritization methods, this framework was originally designed by The Johns Hopkins University to assess environmental health risks in urban environments. The methodology is a three-tiered approach: Tier One focuses on short-term (acute) catastrophic risks, and Tiers Two and Three focus on longer-term health risk issues. A detailed description of the Tier One approach and a demonstration using U.S. data are presented in this article.