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US Department of Defense
BLAST INJURY RESEARCH
COORDINATING OFFICE
Advancing Blast Injury Research to Protect and Heal Those Who Serve

Initiatives


The DOD Blast Injury Research Coordinating Office (BIRCO) supports the DOD Executive Agent by coordinating blast injury research inside and outside of the DOD, nationally and internationally, to support the delivery of timely and effective blast injury prevention, mitigation, and treatment solutions for Service members. BIRCO's activities help to identify and address blast injury knowledge gaps, shape medical research programs to fill identified gaps, facilitate collaboration among diverse communities, disseminate information, and minimize duplication of effort. BIRCO's initiatives are chosen to create and support collaboration among researchers across the DOD, other federal agencies, academia, industry, and international partners to solve complex challenges related to blast injury.

Injury Prevention Standards

Injury Prevention Standards

The Military Health System (MHS) Blast Injury Prevention Standards Recommendation (BIPSR) Process is the DoD's first unbiased, inclusive, stakeholder-driven process designed to identify and assess the suitability and applicability of existing candidate standards and to recommend standards that meet DoD Stakeholder needs with a suitable level of validity, rigor, precision, and confidence. The BIPSR Process seeks to ensure that the DoD uses the best available, scientifically sound, and biomedically-valid standards that will protect our Service Members from blast injuries.

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NDAA Blast Overpressure Studies

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Blast Overpressure Studies (BOS)

BIRCO is a member of the DOD team responding to a Congressional mandate for a Longitudinal Medical Study on Blast Pressure Exposure of Members of the Armed Forces through the National Defense Authorization Act Blast Overpressure Studies (NDAA BOS) initiative. The NDAA BOS will improve the DOD's understanding of the impact of blast pressure exposure on Service member's brain health and inform policy for risk mitigation, unit readiness, and health care decisions.

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DoD Working Group on Computational Modeling

DoD Working Group on Computational Modeling

The objective of the DoD Working Group on Computational Modeling of Human Lethality, Injury, and Impairment from Blast-related Threats is to encourage collaboration and facilitate cooperative RDT&E programs across the DoD related to human injury models of Service members. With stakeholder organizations from across the DoD and other government agencies, this Working Group will help to coalesce fragmented and disparate human modeling and simulation programs and projects to create a coordinated and cohesive DoD effort that will enable a new capability for modeling and simulation across the entire spectrum of blast threat environments.

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Last modified: 04-Sep-2026