The Functional IT Support section provides functional knowledge and guidance to help manage the technical infrastructure and database management expertise to support the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division's mission to conduct comprehensive surveillance and analysis of health-related information regarding Department of Defense service members and military-associated populations. 

To accomplish its mission, the section provides assistance to manage/operate the following:

Defense Medical Surveillance System

The DOD's premier epidemiological resource, is a continuously growing longitudinal database of health-related information on service members who have served in the military since 1990, collecting data from the time they enter military service until they are no longer eligible for care. The DMSS contains billions of records including medical encounters (hospitalizations, outpatient visits, immunizations, reportable medical events, health risk appraisals, and deployment health assessments), demographic characteristics, and military experiences (deployments, assignments, casualty information) of military service members and medical encounters on military associated populations. The organization of the DMSS data helps facilitate efficient and powerful analyses of morbidity among service members, strengthening force health protection.

Defense Medical Epidemiology Database

DMED provides worldwide access to de-identified data contained in the DMSS and remotely accessible to individuals. The purpose of this database is to provide standard epidemiologic methodology used to analyze active duty personnel and medical event data. Through a user-friendly interface, authorized users have unprecedented access to tri-service epidemiologic data and the opportunity to query large amounts of data, including customized queries of disease and injury rates in active duty populations – all provided in a timely and efficient manner.

DOD Serum Repository

The DODSR is the world's largest serum repository with more than 74 million serial blood-derived serum specimens collected from more than 12.2 million active duty and reserve service members throughout their careers. Originally established for the purpose of storing remaining serum from routine HIV testing, its mission has expanded to include an archive of operational and surveillance specimens. The availability of serial specimens in the DODSR that are linked to relevant demographic, occupational, and medical information within the DMSS database provides a unique and powerful resource to support the conduct of military medical surveillance, clinical care, and seroepidemiologic investigations.