DVIDS – News – NSMRL team dedicated to women's health research

GROTON, Conn. — Throughout Women's History Month, the Naval Medical Research and Development Program is highlighting efforts to improve the experience of women in the Navy, including the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory's (NSMRL) Undersea Health Epidemiology Research Program (UHERP). Masu. ) is the Navy's only research team studying the health of female divers and submariners.

Women were not always allowed into the submarine environment. It was in 2010 that the U.S. Navy integrated women into its submarine force, but the decision was controversial. It was argued that women could not adapt to the submarine environment (Boyle, 1999). However, in retrospect over a decade later, this decision did not lead to any lasting negative effects and only continued to increase the available talent pool within the submarine force (Stoner, 2021).

As women began to be integrated into the submarine force, concerns arose about how the submarine environment would affect the health of these new submariners. NSMRL received a direct mandate from the Secretary of the Navy, requesting research into how psychological and epidemiological aspects of the undersea environment affect women. This request led to the creation of UHERP, which has since not only studied women's health but also identified emerging and ongoing health threats among all Navy submariners and divers. It has grown to provide critical data analysis that can be used to characterize

“Our goal is to generate actionable knowledge that can directly support Navy operations, training and policy development,” said Dr. Brian Maguire, senior epidemiologist on the UHERP team.

“You need to understand your population before you make changes,” said Linda Hughes, program manager, statistician, and founding team member at UHERP. Then we can come up with ways to mitigate, such as changes in medical guidance, on-board equipment, and testing. ”

To understand how the underwater environment affects women's health, UHERP scientists need to study a relatively small demographic: the female population of divers and submariners. No matter how small the population, the positive effects of the UHERP study are reverberating throughout the submarine force. In 2022, UHERP won “Best in Show” at the Military Health Systems Research Symposium for its presentation on the health of female divers, which concluded that the risks associated with diving are different for men and women. This one finding from her study shows the importance of targeted understanding.

Dr. Ben Lawson, NSMRL's technical director, said: “The best medicine is prevention, and it's important to know the causes of adverse health effects before we can reduce those risks.”

“We don't know the long-term impact of our work,” Dr. Maguire says. We hope that our activities will help make those decisions. ”

NSMRL, part of Navy Medicine's research and development operations and based in Groton, Conn., maintains the readiness and advantage of undersea warfighters through innovative health and performance research.

Boyle, R. (December 1999). Women should not serve on submarines. U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Proceedings, 125/12/1,162. [Digital copy available: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1999/december/women-should-not-serve-submarines]

Stoner, C. (June 2021). Women on submarines: 10 years later. Atlantic News Stories Submarine Force Commander. https://www.sublant.usff.navy.mil/Press-Room/News-Stories/Article/2671319/women-in-submarines-10-years-later/