Influenza Outbreak During Exercise Talisman Sabre, Queensland, Australia, July 2019.

Influenza appeared in Queensland, Australia during Exercise Talisman Sabre (TS-19) in July 2019 with an early focus within the New Zealand Defence Force members arriving in Australia aboard HMNZS Canterbury. A total of 76 cases of influenza-like illness (ILI) were reported, of which 43 were confirmed by rapid diagnostic tests to be influenza A (n=32) and B (n=11). Australia's influenza season (starting in March, peaked in July 2019) exposed large numbers of military members to a virus for which they had been suboptimally immunized either because of low uptake of the Southern Hemisphere vaccine by Australians/New Zealanders who were not mandated to be immunized, or because U.

Assessment of revised recruitment standards for asthma in the Australian Defence Force.

Objective: To assess the impact of relaxed asthma recruitment standards adopted by the Australian Defence Force in 2007.

Methods: A retrospective audit was conducted on clinical and administrative data for recruits, with and without mild asthma, in their first year of service.

Results: There was no evidence that mild asthmatics experienced worse outcomes than nonasthmatic recruits.

Self-management and rehabilitation in osteoarthritis: is there a place for internet-based interventions?

The electronic databases Cochrane, MEDLINE, and SCOPUS were searched to collect evidence on the impact of community-based Internet interventions for adult patients with osteoarthritis (OA) on health outcomes. Five studies met our review criteria. We found that Internet-based OA self-management interventions modestly but significantly improved four of six health status measures compared with usual care and have been met with high acceptance and high user satisfaction.

The health and cost implications of high body mass index in Australian defence force personnel.

Background: Frequent illness and injury among workers with high body mass index (BMI) can raise the costs of employee healthcare and reduce workforce maintenance and productivity. These issues are particularly important in vocational settings such as the military, which require good physical health, regular attendance and teamwork to operate efficiently. The purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of injury and illness, absenteeism, productivity, healthcare usage and administrative outcomes among Australian Defence Force personnel with varying BMI.

Comparison of self-reported and audiometrically-measured hearing loss in the Australian Defence Force.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between self-reported and audiometrically-measured hearing loss in a sample of Australian Defence Force personnel.

Design: Responses to a question regarding hearing problems were compared with contemporaneous audiometric data.

Study Sample: 3335 members of the Australian Defence Force for whom anonymised medical records were available.