Research Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada, Charlottetown, PE, Canada.
School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Front Public Health. 2020 Oct 6;8:577601. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.577601. eCollection 2020.
Exposure assessment is an important factor in all epidemiological research seeking to identify, evaluate, and control health risks. In the military and veteran context, population health research to explore exposure-response links is complicated by the wide variety of environments and hazards encountered during active service, long latency periods, and a lack of information on exposures in potentially vulnerable subgroups. This paper summarizes some key considerations for exposure assessment in long-term health studies of military populations, including the identification of hazards related to military service, characterization of potentially exposed groups, exposure data collection, and assignment of exposures to estimate health risks. Opportunities and future directions for exposure assessment in this field are also discussed.
暴露评估是所有旨在识别、评估和控制健康风险的流行病学研究中的一个重要因素。在军事和退伍军人背景下，探索暴露-反应关系的人群健康研究由于在现役期间遇到的各种环境和危害、潜伏期长以及缺乏潜在脆弱亚组暴露信息而变得复杂。本文总结了军事人群长期健康研究中暴露评估的一些关键考虑因素，包括确定与兵役相关的危害、描述可能暴露的群体、暴露数据收集以及暴露分配以估计健康风险。还讨论了该领域暴露评估的机会和未来方向。
