Low-Level Exposure and Operational Risk Management

DoD policy and doctrine are based on a uniformly defined range of low-level exposure. This range must address all military scenarios to appropriately determine policy, doctrine, research, and technological needs. Policy and doctrine should not arbitrarily dictate either the number or percentage of casualties that a commander can or should accept in order to complete a mission. The specific accepted risk should be determined by the commander(s), based on the situation and mission requirements. Operational risk management (ORM) is a fundamental aspect of military decision making. The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (US ACHPPM) recommends using the ORM framework to define low-level exposures, and thus low-risk exposures. 

The ORM process involves ranking the severity of a situation, and the probability that this exposure will occur. As Table 3.1 shows, low risk can be attributed to hazards ranging in severity from negligible to marginal to critical, depending on the likelihood that the hazard will occur. 

extremely high risk H, high risk M, moderate risk L, low risk. 

Source-. U.S. Department of the Army. USACHPPM Technical Guild 230, Chemical Exposure Guidelines tor Deployed Military Personnel Version 1.3 May 2003 currently being reviewed by NRC. 

The severity of health effects from chemical exposure is the direct result of dose, the product of chanical conceutration and duration of exposure. It is impossible to predict responses and outcomes in aU situations due to variation in environmental and exposure conditions. Therefore, generic scenarios are nsed to represent typical conditions for estimating the severity of effects. 

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