Pennington Biomedical’s Center for Military Performance and Resilience is working with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine to assess the health and nutrition of active duty military personnel.

The study, which is funded by the Department of Defense, seeks to address a gap in health research that doesn’t include active duty service members, according to an official statement from Pennington Biomedical. This study, called the Military Health and Nutrition Examination Study, aims to generate comprehensive and representative data that leads to improved health in the military.

The study will collect data on Army service members’ dietary intake, nutritional status, cardiovascular health, body composition, metabolic biomarkers of nutritional state and other metrics.

Researchers will travel to military installations across the country to collect this data. The first visit will be at Fort Johnson near Leesville, Louisiana. Their goal is to collect the data of 600 Army service members and plan to make visits to Kentucky, Georgia, New York, Texas and Colorado.

Follow-up visits are also planned. Questionnaires will be sent out every few years to participants still on active duty.

“The [Military Health and Nutrition Examination Study] is the latest in Pennington Biomedical’s extensive history of military health and performance research,” said John Kirwan, executive director of Pennington Biomedical. “Once data gathering is complete, our researchers will provide comprehensive and updated information on the health and habits of our nation’s defenders. The data will also serve as a tremendous reference for our researchers who are identifying strategies to enhance readiness, performance, health, and resilience in soldiers.”

Pennington Biomedical Research Center is a campus of the LSU system.