The Australian Defence Deployment Health Surveillance Program - InterFET Pilot Project

In 1, the then Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Minister Bruce Scott, announced that health reviews would be conducted for all Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel on future overseas deployments. Traditionally deployment health studies have been retrospective studies examining health issues that have arisen from veterans’ concerns on return from deployment. The Deployment Health Surveillance Program (DHSP) aims to replace this approach with a systematic, prospective collection of data on exposure and health outcomes. The DHSP is designed to provide longitudinal surveillance of health of ADF personnel including individual health measurements that are practical for large epidemiological studies. The DHSP is being undertaken by the Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health (CMVH). This began in 2004 when a Think Tank was conducted to review the various international perspectives of investigating the health and well-being consequences of military deployment.