Airmen help keep the force healthy

7/31/2003 - OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN)  -- Ensuring the health and safety of the base population sounds like a job for an action hero of some sort. But two mere mortals from a forward-deployed locations public health office handle the task.

Well, we ensure the health and safety of the troops to the best of our ability, said Lt. Col. Ronald Poole, the chief of aerospace medicine.

The biggest part of out job is definitely food safety, said Tech. Sgt. Henry Reyes, the noncommissioned officer in charge of public health. Basically it is our job to make sure the food remains safe and untampered-with from the vendor to the table.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (handles) these issues for the whole country. We act as that for the Air Force while we are here, he said.

The process of ensuring the food served on base is healthy is quite involved, Pool said.

Once the food for the base is identified, it is monitored until it is served. We verify cleanliness of the food and proper handling, he said.

They inspect warehouses and kitchens, and check the temperature of stored and cooked food.

We even test the chlorine levels of the water that is used to wash the dishes the food is cooked in and served on, Pool said.

Besides the kitchen inspections, public health officials spend a large portion of their day inspecting other public facilities around the base.

We handle all the sanitary inspections, Reyes said. We inspect the dining hall, the community activity centers, the base exchange, the barbershop, the bathrooms any place large portions of the base populous frequent.

They also ensure everyone on base is immunized.

We protect the force with proper immunizations here in a high-threat area, Poole said. We have to track compliance and report it to the commander and to U.S. Central Command Air Forces (officials).

One of the biggest challenges public health officials faced was implementing the smallpox-vaccination program, Poole said.

This installation has the highest smallpox vaccination compliance rate within (U.S. Central Command Air Forces), with 98 percent of the population vaccinated, Poole said. When the program was implemented, we had a compliance rate of 5 percent and within three weeks, we (were) able to reach our goal.

Public-health officials, along with a medical group team, maintain this level of compliance by checking the medical records of inbound people before they even arrive. Medical-services people give immunizations to those needing them upon arrival. The medical group team works diligently to ensure they continue to meet standards.

Public-health officials also work closely with the medical clinic to monitor medical visits and look for trends in illnesses.

If we see a spike in a certain type of illness, we then have to determine the cause of that illness and remedy it before it becomes an epidemic, Poole said.

Poole and Reyes said they stay busy, but they enjoy it.

The best part of my job is getting out of the office and getting to do a lot of different things, Reyes said. The hardest part, though, is finding enough hours in the day to accomplish all the different aspects of our job.