A review of mortality from parasitic and vector-borne diseases in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 2012.

We review a unique set of documents, death certificates, cataloged in the U.S. Air Force Mortality Registry database, which tracks deaths for all current and retired service members. We screened the records for all deaths caused by parasitic, vector-borne, or zoonotic diseases between 1970 and 2013. There were 78 deaths caused by a variety of diseases such as amebiasis, malaria, strongyloidiasis, schistosomiasis, and pneumocystosis. We compare these deaths to U.S. national deaths. U.S. Air Force service members are more likely to die from malaria, strongyloidiasis, and Q fever than the average American but are less likely to die from pneumocystosis.