What is the primary role of preventive medicine and environmental health in sustaining deployed troops?

• A. Detects and controls health threats, conducts vaccination and surveillance, ensures water/food safety, controls vectors, assesses hazards, and maintains readiness.
• B. Provides clinical care to patients in field hospitals and conducts trauma resuscitation.
• C. Develops combat strategies and mission planning.
• D. Maintains only supply chains for medical equipment.

Answer: (A)

Preventive medicine and environmental health focus on keeping troops healthy so they can operate effectively by stopping health threats before they affect soldiers. This includes surveillance to detect emerging issues, vaccination to prevent infectious diseases, ensuring water and food safety, controlling vectors, and assessing environmental hazards and occupational exposures. Collectively, these activities reduce illness and outbreaks and maintain force readiness in deployed environments. Providing clinical care in field hospitals, trauma resuscitation, developing combat strategies, or managing only supply chains belong to other specialties—clinical operations, strategic planning, and logistics, not preventive medicine.