Photo By Emily Swedlund | KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Aug. 15, 2023) Ms. Linda Hughes, program manager of the Naval...... read more read more
GROTON, Conn. -- Throughout Women’s History Month, the Naval Medical Research & Development enterprise highlights efforts to enhance the experience of women in the Navy—efforts such as Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory (NSMRL)’s Undersea Health Epidemiology Research Program (UHERP), the only research team in the Navy that studies the health of women divers and submariners.
Women were not always allowed in the submarine environment. It was in 2010 that the U.S. Navy integrated women into the Submarine Force, and the decision was controversial—it had been argued that women could not fit into the submarine environment (Boyle, 1999). However, as we look back over a decade later, this decision did not lead to any lasting negative impacts, and has only continued to increase the available pool of talent within the Submarine force (Stoner, 2021).
As women started to integrate into the Submarine Force, concerns arose regarding how the submarine environment might affect the health of these new submariners. NSMRL received a tasker directly from the Secretary of the Navy, requesting research on how the psychological and epidemiological aspects of the submarine environment affect women. Out of this request, UHERP was established, and has since grown to study not only the health of women, but to provide critical data analysis that could identify and characterize emerging and ongoing heath threats among all Navy submariners and divers.
“Our goal,” said Dr. Brian Maguire, senior epidemiologist on the UHERP team, “is to create actionable knowledge that can directly support Navy operations, training, and policy development.”
“You have to understand a population before you can make changes,” said Linda Hughes, UHERP’s program manager, statistician, and founding member of the team, “We have to identify who is at risk, and what they’re at risk for, and then we can come up with methods to mitigate, whether that’s through changes to medical guidance, onboard equipment, or screenings.”
To understand how the undersea environment can affect women’s health, UHERP scientists must study the female population of divers and submariners, a relatively small demographic. However small the population, the positive effects of UHERP research has echoed throughout the Submarine Force. In 2022, UHERP won “Best In Show” at the Military Health Systems Research Symposium for their presentation on the health of female divers, which concluded that the risks associated with diving differ between men and women. The results of this one study show the importance of targeted understanding.
“The best medicine is prevention,” said Dr. Ben Lawson, NSMRL’s technical director, “And it’s important to know what is causing adverse health outcomes before those risks can be reduced.”
“We don’t know the long-term effects of our work,” says Dr. Maguire, “It’s our job to find the risks and share that information, which can assist decision-makers who are creating policy or guidelines, and it is our hope that the work we do can inform those decisions.”
NSMRL, part of Navy Medicine’s Research & Development enterprise, and based out of Groton, Connecticut, sustains the readiness and superiority of undersea warfighters through innovative health and performance research.
Boyle, R. (Dec 1999). Women Should Not Serve on Submarines. U.S. Naval Institute 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 in Submarines: 10 Years Later. Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic News Stories. https://www.sublant.usff.navy.mil/Press-Room/News-Stories/Article/2671319/women-in-submarines-10-years-later/
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.28.2024 14:06 |
| Story ID: | 467274 |
| Location: | GROTON, CONNECTICUT, US |
| Web Views: | 134 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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