The United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) is the U.S Army’s main institution and facility for military environmental medicine and exercise physiology research. It is located at Natick, MA within the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center (SSC) installation, but is a subordinate lab of the U. S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), headquartered at Fort Detrick, MD, USA.
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USARIEM’s Mission Statement mandates that the Institute:
Protect, Sustain and Enhance the Health and Performance of Warfighters through Basic and Applied Research in Environmental (Heat, Cold and Altitude) and Occupational Medicine.
Research programs focus on the servicemember (acclimation; body size; gender; race; age; health; hydration; nutrition; fitness; and sleep status), the environment (temperature; wind; humidity; and altitude), and the mission (work—intensity, duration, and type; clothing and equipment; and medications).
USARIEM traces its institutional lineage back to 1927 and the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory. That facility fostered two institutions that ultimately merged. The first was the Climatic Research Laboratory in Lawrence, MA (1943–54), which relocated to Natick in 1954 under the new name of the Environmental Protection Research Division (EPRD) of the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Research and Engineering Command. The second was the Armored Medical Research Laboratory (AMRL) at Fort Knox, KY (1942–61) elements of which joined with the EPRD in 1961 to constitute the present USARIEM facility and organization.
USARIEM’s basic and applied research capabilities are focused upon biomedical evaluations, health hazard assessments, countermeasures development and a rapid response to a diverse range of environmental threats and problems. Products include individual soldier equipment and rations; guidelines pertaining to training policy and preventive medicine; and performance monitoring strategies and predictive algorithms.
Research divisions within USARIEM consist of Biophysics and Biomedical Modeling (develops biomedical models to simulate effects of heat, cold, high altitude, hydration, nutritional status and clothing systems and equipment), Military Performance (researches performance enhancements (physical, cognitive, behavioral, psychomotor) in military occupational tasks), Military Nutrition (researches nutritional issues, including new rations, affecting servicemembers), and Thermal and Mountain Medicine (researches physical and cognitive work capabilities and medical problems associated with military operations at high altitude or temperature extremes).
USARIEM maintains several unique or highly specialized facilities:
This article contains information that originally came from US Government publications and websites and is in the public domain.
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