Study Links Military Burn Pits to Respiratory Challenges

The U.S. military regularly used open burn pits on various military bases to dispose of solid, medical and hazardous materials during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq between 2001-2014.

A new study published April 2024 in the JAMA Network looked to establish a link between burn pits and higher respiratory and cardiovascular disease in veterans, responding to widespread concern from veterans.

After all, environmental experts have long been concerned about the potential risks to troops and the local civilian populations nearby these burn pits, as the military has reportedly been utilizing these for decades.

David A Savitz, Ph.D, and his colleagues in the department of epidemiology at Brown University School of Public Health, conducted the research and found that prolonged deployment to military bases with open burn pits was associated with increased risk of developing asthma, COPD, and hypertension.

Additionally, the researchers concluded that it also pointed to an increased risk in ischemic stroke.

“It’s an exposure that has generated a lot of interest and concern as millions of soliders over time were exposed,” said Savitz, the study’s co-lead investigator and professor of epidemiology, pediatrics and obstetrics at Brown. “Very little has been known about this topic, but we identified an opportunity to link data that had not been available to be used before.”

In the study, “Deployment to Military Bases with Open Burn Pits and Respiratory and Cardiovascular Disease,” the researchers examined DOD Deployment data and the service records of 459,381 people in the period between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2014, and used follow-up health data from the Veterans Administration through Dec. 31, 2020.

The mean age of the study population was 31.6 years old, and the cohort was 87% male, although ethnically diverse.

“The novel ability to use integrated data on deployment and health outcomes provides a model for additional studies of the health impact of environmental exposures during military service,” Savitz said. “We were not measuring exposure; what were able to use as a proxy or indicator of exposure is duration of employment to bases at which burn pits were being used.”

By looking at the relationships between how long the individual was assigned to bases known to be using burn pits, the study authors could compare to other military personnel that were assigned to those without burn pits, and come up with reasonable data.

“We’ve learned that the conditions of greatest concern are the common respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and we looked at an array of those,” Savitz said. “We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but the identification of several diseases where there was a small increment in risk followed a pretty clear pattern. The longer the period of deployment to bases with burn pits, the higher the risk.”

Savitz hopes the study will serve as a future model for further examining health impacts of military environmental hazards.