Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology Program: Heat Strain Evaluation in an Environmental Chamber and in the Field.

Abstract : The Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST) Program, defined in a 1993 Memorandum of Agreement signed by representatives of the U.S. Marines, Army, Navy, and Air Force, is responsible for overseeing development, production, and deployment of the next generation of chemical/biological protective suits. This report is of two human studies conducted to: (1) address the services requirement for new garments that impose less heat stress than current protective garments, and (2) provide data for the Health Hazard Assessment. The suits tested included overgarment, undergarment and duty uniform concepts. The field study was conducted at Yuma Proving Ground, AZ in the summer of 1995, and a controlled environmental chamber study was conducted in the summer of 1996 at the United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine and the United States Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility, Natick, MA. Physiological measures were made of rectal temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, sweating rate, and test time; while questionnaires evaluated subjective symptoms of heat illness. The results of the field and chamber studies indicate that the Army's Battledress Overgarment imposes the most heat strain, the Marine Saratoga and Navy Chemical Protective Overgarment impose the least, and the JSLIST prototype garments imposed heat strain that ranged between the worst and best controls.