Non-battle injuries in Air Force personnel deployed in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom

BACKGROUND: Non-battle injuries are a major source of morbidity for deployed military personnel, who have many more non-battle injuries than battle injuries. Few studies have been published examining non-battle injuries for deployed United States Air Force members. This study examines the relationship between component status (Active Duty, Guard, or Reserve) and non-battle injuries in a deployed environment. METHODS: A historical prospective cohort study of approximately 480,000 individual Air Force deployments in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom was conducted for the study period (11 September 2001 through 31 October 2006). Data on injuries diagnosed during clinical visits was obtained from military medical surveillance systems and total deployment time was obtained from manpower records. Poisson regression was used to estimate incidence rate ratios comparing components. RESULTS: The overall unadjusted incidence rate of non-battle injuries in deployed members for the study period (2001-2006) was 93.49 non-battle injuries per 1,000 person-years deployed. The most common non-battle injuries were sprains and strains (53.0%) followed by open wounds (27.3%). Guard and Reserve members had similar or lower rates of orthopedic, open wound, and superficial non-battle injuries than Active Duty members when incidence rate ratios were adjusted for age and Air Force Specialty Code. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the fact that they have fewer training hours prior to deployment, Guard and Reserve has lower rates of non-battle injury than Active Duty. Further research may facilitate the development of more rapid training programs and suggest injury prevention initiatives to reduce non-battle injuries in a deployed environment.