Abstract
BackgroundWith the removal of gender restrictions and the changing nature of warfare potentially increasing female soldier exposure to heavy military load carriage, the aim of this research was to determine relative risks and patterns of load carriage related injuries in female compared to male soldiers.MethodsThe Australian Defence Force Occupational Health, Safety and Compensation Analysis and Reporting workplace injury database was searched to identify all reported load carriage injuries. Using key search terms, the narrative description fields were used as the search medium to identify records of interest. Population estimates of the female: male incident rate ratio (IRR) were calculated with ninety-five percent confidence interval (95% CI) around the population estimate of each IRR determined.ResultsFemale soldiers sustained 10% (n = 40) of the 401 reported injuries, with a female to male IRR of 1.02 (95% CI 0.74 to 1.41). The most common site of injury for both genders was the back (F: n = 11, 27%; M: n = 80, 22%), followed by the foot in female soldiers (n = 8, 20%) and the ankle (n = 60, 17%) in male soldiers. Fifteen percent (n = 6) of injuries in female soldiers and 6% (n = 23) of injuries in males were classified as Serious Personal Injuries (SPI) with the lower back the leading site for both genders (F: n = 3, 43%: M: n = 8, 29%). The injury risk ratio of SPI for female compared to male soldiers was 2.40 (95% CI 0.98 to 5.88).ConclusionsWhile both genders similarly have the lower back as the leading site of injury while carrying load, female soldiers have more injuries to the foot as the second leading site of injury, as opposed to ankle injuries in males. The typically smaller statures of female soldiers may have predisposed them to their observed higher risk of suffering SPI while carrying loads.
Highlights
With the removal of gender restrictions and the changing nature of warfare potentially increasing female soldier exposure to heavy military load carriage, the aim of this research was to determine relative risks and patterns of load carriage related injuries in female compared to male soldiers
With the recent removal of gender restrictions in combat arms trades for several military forces [8], there is potential in many nations for female soldiers to be more frequently exposed to heavy military load carriage and it is timely to consider the injury risks that women may face in this role and
Records of 401 reported injuries associated with load carriage were identified from a total 1954 Australian Regular Army (ARA) injury records for the study period
Summary
With the removal of gender restrictions and the changing nature of warfare potentially increasing female soldier exposure to heavy military load carriage, the aim of this research was to determine relative risks and patterns of load carriage related injuries in female compared to male soldiers. With the recent removal of gender restrictions in combat arms trades for several military forces [8], there is potential in many nations for female soldiers to be more frequently exposed to heavy military load carriage and it is timely to consider the injury risks that women may face in this role and During load carriage tasks, female participants have typically been found to work at a higher percentage of their maximum aerobic capacity than their male counterparts when carrying the same absolute loads at the same intensity (e.g., same speed and gradient) [9,10,11]. It is appropriate to clearly acknowledge at this point that many of these mean gender differences affecting absolute work capacity result from genderrelated differences in mean stature, social influences for
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