Patricia A. Deuster, PhD, MPH, is a Professor and Director for the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP), a Defense Center of Excellence for Human Performance Optimization (HPO) Translation at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) School of Medicine in the Department of Military and Emergency Medicine; she is also a faculty for the Neuroscience program. Dr. Deuster has over 30 years of experience in human research and more than 180 publications focused on integrative health and neuroendocrine responses to stress. Dr. Deuster has led many projects relating to differential stress reactivity within various populations, to include patients with depression, seasonal affective disorder, fibromyalgia, obesity, and chronic fatigue syndrome. In addition, her group is interested in how various integrative health strategies may regulate/activate the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis and modify overall psychological health.
Dr. Deuster was key in developing the integrative health concept of Total Force Fitness in the Department of Defense (DoD) and serves on several DoD committees, to include the Food and Nutrition Committee, the DoD Human Performance Optimization Health Sciences Advisory Committee, and she chairs the DoD Dietary Supplement Subcommittee. Multiple educational materials related to HPO, nutritional fitness, total force fitness, physical training, and psychological health and well-being are posted on the CHAMP (champ.usuhs.mil) and Human Performance Resource Center (hprc-online.org) websites.
