Photo By Emily Swedlund | KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Aug. 26, 2024) Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory (NSMRL)...... read more read more
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Multiple research teams from the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory (NSMRL) came together at the Military Health Systems Research Symposium (MHSRS) to present on a cross-disciplinary study years in the making. NSMRL was joined at MHSRS by other Navy Medicine Research and Development (NMR&D) commands.
The Naval Psychological Readiness and Human Performance (NHPRP) and Undersea Health Epidemiology Research Program (UHERP) teams came together for a Scientific Abstract of Distinction plenary talk, presented by Lt. Cmdr. Neal McNeal, on leveraging big data to identify and understand the mechanisms underlying unplanned losses among enlisted Submariners, which is an area of concern within the Submarine Force.
UHERP maintains an epidemiologic database that cross-references multiple Navy data sources. One of their main objectives is to identify the reasoning behind premature separation from military service and to improve the capabilities of the undersea warfare community by harnessing information from big-data platforms.
“Unplanned loss is a real issue in the Submarine Force, and our team has spent many years looking through health records trying to understand why,” said Linda Hughes, the statistician on the UHERP team. “We have this wealth of data that we’ve collected, and collaborating with the NPRHP team may be the opportunity we’ve been looking for to make real change.”
NSMRL’s NPHRP team works on-the-ground with the Submarine Force, modernizing the psychological readiness screening and assessment tools for all prospective submariners. The program was initiated in 2017, with the goal to reduce unplanned losses and improve retention. Most recently, the team has been in the process of developing the Submarine Environment Fit (SUBFIT) assessment, which combines a clinical assessment of potential service-limiting symptoms with measures of other non-clinical personality traits and behaviors associated with successful submarine service.
“This collaboration has been a long time coming,” said Dr. Justin Handy, a research psychologist on the NPRHP team. “This presentation is a testament to leveraging resources the lab has had for years, and creating a nice synergy between our teams. The lab has been trying for decades to have a solid predictive analytic study dedicated to SUBSCREEN, so it’s exciting to finally have the pieces in place.”
McNeal, the department head of the Operations Division at NSMRL, presented this collaborative poster, which included authors from NPRHP and UHERP, and included one of NSMRL’s Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP) interns, Bria Carmichael.
“We wanted to make sure Ms. Carmichael had the opportunity to be intimately involved in this project from the very beginning,” said McNeal. “We reached out to her before the internship even started to get her integrated into the research, as we want our interns to really get genuine hands-on experience. Having her named on this poster is a testament to the great work she did during her time at the lab.”
“This is an innovative study in the sense that it’s cross disciplinary, so we are able to have multiple individuals with different areas of expertise come together and leverage over 10 years of big data to figure out how we can actually predict these unplanned losses,” said Dr. Dominica Hernandez, a research psychologist on the NPRHP team. “Finding answers on why we’re losing some Sailors will help us create opportunities to mitigate those losses.”
MHSRS is the DoD’s premier scientific meeting that focuses specifically on the unique medical needs of service members. This annual educational symposium brings together healthcare professionals, researchers, and DoD leaders for four days of critical learning, intensive idea sharing and relationship building.
NMR&D, led by NMRC, is engaged in a broad spectrum of activity from basic science in the laboratory to field studies in austere and remote areas of the world to investigations in operational environments. In support of the Navy, Marine Corps, and joint U.S. warfighters, enterprise researchers study infectious diseases, biological warfare detection and defense, combat casualty care, environmental health concerns, aerospace and undersea medicine, medical modeling, simulation, operational mission support, epidemiology and behavioral sciences.
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.28.2024 10:10 |
| Story ID: | 479622 |
| Location: | KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 147 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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