Injury Prevention for Active Duty Personnel

• Injuries are the largest medical burden to the DOD.
  
• Service members require almost 5 million medical visits for injuries per year. 
• This is 2 to 4 times more medical visits than needed for the next most common reason which is behavioral and mental health. 
  
• Injuries degrade force readiness through millions of lost duty/training days and $ billions annually. 
  

• Over 95% of military injuries are musculoskeletal injuries (MSK​Is).
  
• Most (>2/3) are caused by cumulative microtrauma (known as 'overuse' injuries).
  
• Lower body overuse MSKI are most common, often due to excessive running.
  
• Acute MSKI (fractures, sprains, strains) are most commonly caused by falls.
• Fatal and severe military injuries are often due to motor-vehicles, heat, and cold weather.​​
  

• Prior heat-, cold-weather, or MSK injuries to a particular body region can predispose a person to a similar injury or long-term injury-related condition.
  

BENEFITS OF PREVENTING INJURIES:

• Reduce time loss to physical restrictions for work/training (temporary profile​) 
  
• Decrease costs (direct medical, compensation/disability, & lost duty time)
• Improve overall performance (individual and unit)

NEW AND HIG​HLIGHTED PROD​​UCTS:

• Current injury numbers and trends:
• Army public health dashboards provide quarterly injury rates over time as high (red), consistent (amber), and low rates (green) for All-Army, Medical Readiness Commands, and Installations. (Restricted access, CAC required)​ 
• Annual Injury Surveillance reports 
• Your installation's data

• Recent ​news articles (see previous news articles HERE): 
• Bone stress injury risk reduction optimizes force readiness​ (Apr 2025)
  
• Reduce impact of upper extremity injury with early diagnosis, occupational therapy​​ (Apr 2025)
  
• ​Save sight to fight: prevent eye injuries when playing sports​ with eye protection (Apr 2025)
  

• Recent factsheets (see other factsheets HERE): 
• ​Musculoskeletal Injuries​ (updated Apr 2025)
• Parachuting Injuries (updated Nov 2024)

• ​Recent journal articles (see other articles HERE): 
• ​​Assessing likelihood of fitness changes among trainees (Nov 2024) 
• Relative Strength and Physical Performance in Soldiers (Aug 2024)
• ​Recent technical reports (see other reports HERE)​: 
• 2024 Army Injury Surveillance Report (most recent data from 2022) 
• Standardized Approach to DOD Medical Surveillance of Injuries (May 2023) – injuries were leading reason for military medical visits across Services
  

• ​​​DHA References​ for additional injury prevention resources. 
  
• DHA Injury Prevention Technical Presentations​ for recent slides and posters. 
  
• Military Injury Prevention Research to Practice Work Group and Research to Practice Education Series.​​ ​​​​​​
  ​