Page 108 - JSOM Fall 2025

mission and medical readiness and demonstrate return-on- To facilitate use and reduce research fatigue, a guiding prin-
15
investment for health and performance programs. This need ciple of the CBB was its community-engaged design, whereby
to regularly realign service delivery with operational needs has participating community members were integral collabo-
increased since the time CBB was piloted. While embedded rators in the overall processes of planning, data collection,
assets, through programs like Preservation of the Force and survey-tool creation, results interpretation, construction of
Family (POTFF), or Tactical Human Optimization, Rapid Re- the CBB report and action plan, and transfer of the results.
habilitation and Reconditioning Program (THOR3), may have Community- engaged research recognizes community mem-
tighter feedback loops on SOF unit community needs than bers as experts in their own right, so having 2W1 commu-
those embedded with conventional forces, challenges remain nity partners who were experts at multiple levels was integral
in aligning services to community needs across a breadth of to understanding the career-field and site-contextual factors.
career fields and in turn capturing the return-on-investment These experts were also integral to building a blueprint that
for service delivery. 16,17 By identifying the career-field and unit accurately reflected that context and could be applied by those
health and performance needs associated with unit/career-field community members. 18,19 The CBB team’s goal was to mesh
members’ tasks, mission sets, and working environments, CBB TFF domain expertise and the richness of 2W1 community
was designed to map career-field health and performance pri- expertise and experience at each site into a deliverable that
orities at a unit and career-field level with some benchmarks was user-friendly for career-field leadership and health and
to measure return on investment. Beginning with identifying performance personnel to cooperatively and individually use
critical tasks, CBB aims to capture performance demands, oc- in realigning services to career-field needs.
cupational risks, and associated health conditions that result
from performing those critical tasks in operational working As CBB efforts grew, so did the need to answer questions
environments (Figure 3). around scalability. Each CBB was designed to elucidate com-
munity-level priorities for tactical-level leaders and assets in
FIGURE 3 The five sequential phases of the capability-based collaboration with those community members to ensure that
blueprinting (CBB) process begin with Servicemembers choosing
PICTs from their mission-essential tasks (MET) using TRIAGE and data collection, analysis, recommendations, and implementa-
SETS methodologies. Using PICTs as a foundation, the CBB process tion of changes remained grounded, meaningful, and useful
maps performance demands, occupational risks, and associated to all project stakeholders, especially those career-field com-
health outcomes as a result of performing those PICTs. Findings munity members. While the resulting blueprint provided ac-
are then cooperatively cross-checked, compiled, quality-checked
by researchers and CBB participants, and disseminated to the tionable data at the installation and unit level, strategic-level
participating community. leaders were looking for solutions to address solutions across
an entire career field, if not even larger target populations.
After engaging with three 2W1 communities, we set out to
answer how similar 2W1 communities’ blueprints were and,
in the process, assess whether career-field-wide health and per-
formance recommendations could be identified.
To identify common health and performance priorities, the
team compiled results across the three 2W1 CBBs by com-
ponent: population-identified critical tasks, performance
demands, health risks, and environmental exposures. Perfor-
mance demands that were present at two sites or more were
included, and health risks and environmental exposures that
were identical across and present at two or more sites were in-
cluded in the compiled analysis. Caveats were included for any
items that were not present or were worded slightly differently
in the health-sustainment survey built with career-field subject
PICT = population-identified critical tasks; SETS = Standard Estab- matter experts at each site to ensure transparency.
lishment Through Scenarios; SME = subject matter expert; TFF = Total
Force Fitness; TRIAGE = Technique for Research of Information by
Animation of a Group of Experts.
Generalizable Findings
We worked with units in the 1U and 1N3 communities as While the CBB was designed to identify and address health and
well as with three 2W1 sites. Each capability-based blueprint, performance priorities of a specific career field at a specific in-
even for repeat career fields, was approached as a separate stallation, our work with the 2W1 community suggests some
community-engaged process with career-field members, lead- priorities may be common across an entire career field, and
ership, and health and performance personnel at each site. possibly even in SOF, although this assumption requires further
This included the building of tailored recommendations and evaluation. This is particularly true for factors associated with
action plans for each site. For example, stakeholders at the health and performance in the physical, ergonomic, and nutri-
three 2W1 sites applied their CBB data to realignment efforts, tional realms, as they are often inherent to the career field itself,
including building a Maintenance Center of Resilience on the as opposed to an installation or unit. For example, Servicemem-
flightline for all Maintainers on site, adding vibration hazards bers in the 2W1 community often self-reported back and knee
to their occupational health surveys, launching a musculoskel- pain due to the heavy lifting, prolonged standing, and maneu-
etal injury prevention program and integrating it into training, vering in/out of confined spaces required to perform their job.
and building maintainer-specific health and performance pro- Because these job requirements exist across all airframes, back
gramming that addresses everything from financial readiness and knee pain are commonly reported regardless of which unit
to sleep hygiene. individuals work in. Nutritional demands are also common

106 | JSOM Volume 25, Edition 3 / Fall 2025