Timely, Relevant, Comprehensive and Actionable Health Surveillance
The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division is the central epidemiologic health resource for the U.S. military. We conduct medical surveillance to protect those who serve our nation in uniform and allies who are critical to our national security interests. AFHSD is a division within DHA’s Public Health.
AFHSD is organized into three branches: Epidemiology and Analysis, Global Emerging Infections Surveillance, and Integrated Biosurveillance. We place emphasis on defense management tools through our Information Technology Support section.
We coordinate and leverage health surveillance resources across the DOD Public Health enterprise to include the Defense Centers for Public Health – Aberdeen (Army), Defense Centers for Public Health – Dayton (Air Force), and Defense Centers for Public Health – Portsmouth (Navy and Marine Corps) for early warning, health threat assessments and force health protection.
Learn how our health information analysis supports worldwide disease surveillance and public health activities to improve the U.S. military’s Force Health Protection mission.
Purpose
To protect the total force through actionable health surveillance information and support.
Goals
- Flexible, responsive, and predicative to our customers.
- Early warning capability of global health threats.
- Inform risk management decisions across the health surveillance enterprise.
Explore our health surveillance resources to learn how to utilize our data applications, systems and the ways our health information analysis supports worldwide disease surveillance and public health activities to improve the U.S. military's Force Health Protection program.
The Medical Surveillance Monthly Report is AFHSD's flagship publication. The monthly peer-reviewed journal provides evidence-based estimates of the incidence, distribution, impact, and trends of health-related conditions among service members. Additionally, the MSMR focuses one issue per year on the absolute and relative morbidity burden attributable to various illnesses and injuries among service members and beneficiaries.
View Current Report View Archived ReportsArchived Reports
The Health Surveillance Explorer is a dynamic CAC-enabled mapping application that allows the GeoÂgraphic Combatant Commands to identify global health threats and disease outbreaks in near-real time. It provides timely, relevant and actionable health surveillance information to military leaders around the globe. The HSE makes it more efficient and effective to assemble surveillance data.
Launch HSE
The Proposal Management Information System program is a web-based application used to facilitate program management at the AFHSD's Global Emerging Infections Surveillance section. Investigators in the GEIS partner network submit proposals for funding consideration and GEIS operations staff monitors the progress of those projects.
Go to ProMIS
The Defense Medical Epidemiology Database provides worldwide access to de-identified data contained in the Defense Medical Surveillance System. Through this user-friendly interface, authorized users can create customized queries of disease and injury rates in active duty populations.
Go to DMED
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Fact Sheet
Mar 30, 2017
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This fact sheet provides details on the demographic and military traits of service members diagnosed as traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases during a 16-year surveillance period from 2001 through 2016, a total of 276,858 active component service members received first-time diagnoses of TBI - a structural alteration of the brain or physiological ...
Fact Sheet
Mar 30, 2017
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This fact sheet provides details on heat illnesses by location during a five-year surveillance period from 2012 through 2016. 11,967 heat-related illnesses were diagnosed at more than 250 military installations and geographic locations worldwide. Three Army Installations accounted for close to one-third of all heat illnesses during the period.
Fact Sheet
Mar 30, 2017
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This fact sheet provides details on Rhabdomyolysis by location for active component, U.S. Armed Forces during a five-year surveillance period from 2012 through 2016. The medical treatment facilities at nine installations diagnosed at least 50 cases each and, together approximately half (49.9%) of all diagnosed cases.
Report
May 11, 2016
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183.92 KB
A new study of female service members that examined their immune response to a vaccine to combat the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer showed development of antibodies in 80 to 99 percent of recipients against each of the four strains of the disease.
Report
Jan 1, 2016
.PDF |
1.28 MB
A monthly publication of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch. This issue of the peer-reviewed journal contains the following articles: Increasing severity of traumatic brain injury is associated with an increased risk of subsequent headache or migraine: a retrospective cohort study of U.S. active duty service members, 2006–2015; Use of ...
Report
Jan 1, 2016
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1.56 MB
A monthly publication of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch. This issue of the peer-reviewed journal contains the following articles: The DoD Global, Laboratory-based, Influenza Surveillance Program: summary for the 2013-2014 influenza season; Correlation between antimicrobial resistance in Escherichia coli infections in hospitalized ...
Report
Jan 1, 2016
.PDF |
1.56 MB
A monthly publication of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch. This issue of the peer-reviewed journal contains the following articles: Absolute and relative morbidity burdens attributable to various illnesses and injuries, active component, U.S. Armed Forces, 2015; Hospitalizations among members of the active component, U.S. Armed Forces, ...
Report
Dec 15, 2015
.PDF |
23.24 MB
In this annual report, you will see that the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center continued to make significant strides in supporting public health surveillance for the Department of Defense to maintain the health and readiness of its forces, and contribute to the global health security of its allies.
Policy
Feb 26, 2008
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212.09 KB
In accordance with DOD Directive 5101,1, "DOD Executive Agent," Sept. 3, 2002, this memorandum designates the Secretary of the Army as the DOD Executive Agent for the AFHSC, which includes the Defense Medical Surveillance System and the DOD Serum Repository.
- Identification #: OSD 02140-08
- Type: Memorandum
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Last Updated: September 11, 2025