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Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers

A few countries permit women to serve in combat roles, but their long term performance in these positions has not been reported. The incidences of overuse injuries and attrition of 85 male and 235 female recruits in a light infantry brigade was followed in a three-year prospective study. Females wer...

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Autores principales: Finestone, Aharon S., Milgrom, Charles, Yanovich, Ran, Evans, Rachel, Constantini, Naama, Moran, Daniel S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25215282
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/572953
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author Finestone, Aharon S.
Milgrom, Charles
Yanovich, Ran
Evans, Rachel
Constantini, Naama
Moran, Daniel S.
author_facet Finestone, Aharon S.
Milgrom, Charles
Yanovich, Ran
Evans, Rachel
Constantini, Naama
Moran, Daniel S.
author_sort Finestone, Aharon S.
collection PubMed
description A few countries permit women to serve in combat roles, but their long term performance in these positions has not been reported. The incidences of overuse injuries and attrition of 85 male and 235 female recruits in a light infantry brigade was followed in a three-year prospective study. Females were shorter (162 cm, CI 161–163 cm) than males (174 cm, CI 173–176), had more body fat (18.9 kg, CI 18.2–19.6 kg) than males (12.6 kg, 11.3–13.8 kg), had lower [Formula: see text] O(2)max (36.8 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1), CI 35.8–37.78 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1)) than males (50.48 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1), CI 48.4 to 52.48 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1)), had more stress fractures (21.0%, 95% CI 16.2–26.5%) than males (2.3%, CI 0.3–8.2%), and had more anterior knee pain (41.2%, CI 34.9–47.7%) than males (24.7%, CI 16.0–35.2%). Three-year attrition was 28% CI 22–34% for females and 37% CI 26–48% for males. The females in this study successfully served as light infantry soldiers. Their lower fitness and high incidence of overuse injuries might impede service as regular infantry soldiers.
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spelling pubmed-41518592014-09-11 Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers Finestone, Aharon S. Milgrom, Charles Yanovich, Ran Evans, Rachel Constantini, Naama Moran, Daniel S. Biomed Res Int Research Article A few countries permit women to serve in combat roles, but their long term performance in these positions has not been reported. The incidences of overuse injuries and attrition of 85 male and 235 female recruits in a light infantry brigade was followed in a three-year prospective study. Females were shorter (162 cm, CI 161–163 cm) than males (174 cm, CI 173–176), had more body fat (18.9 kg, CI 18.2–19.6 kg) than males (12.6 kg, 11.3–13.8 kg), had lower [Formula: see text] O(2)max (36.8 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1), CI 35.8–37.78 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1)) than males (50.48 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1), CI 48.4 to 52.48 mL·min(−1) ·kg(−1)), had more stress fractures (21.0%, 95% CI 16.2–26.5%) than males (2.3%, CI 0.3–8.2%), and had more anterior knee pain (41.2%, CI 34.9–47.7%) than males (24.7%, CI 16.0–35.2%). Three-year attrition was 28% CI 22–34% for females and 37% CI 26–48% for males. The females in this study successfully served as light infantry soldiers. Their lower fitness and high incidence of overuse injuries might impede service as regular infantry soldiers. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4151859/ /pubmed/25215282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/572953 Text en Copyright © 2014 Aharon S. Finestone et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Finestone, Aharon S.
Milgrom, Charles
Yanovich, Ran
Evans, Rachel
Constantini, Naama
Moran, Daniel S.
Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title_full Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title_fullStr Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title_short Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers
title_sort evaluation of the performance of females as light infantry soldiers
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25215282
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/572953
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