Introduction to Special Issue: Stress and Health in Law Enforcement

Details

• Personal Author:
  Violanti JM
• Description:
  There are approximately 765,000 sworn police officers in the United States, represented by 17,784 agencies. Despite the large size of this workforce and the strain of this occupation, the police are understudied in terms of the influence that the workplace has on work's psychological well-being and physical health. Policing is a psychologically stressful work environment filled with danger, high demands, ambiguity in work encounters, human misery, and exposure to death. In 2004, the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress (BCOPS) study was initiated in collaboration with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) along with contributions from the National Institute of Justice. The study was completed in 2009 and was among one of the first structured scientific attempts to gather both psychological and physiological data on a large sample of police officers. Four hundred and sixty-four police officers participated in the BCOPS study. The study provided an opportunity to investigate associations between stress, traumatic incidents lifestyle (smoking, diet, exercise, sleep), stress biomarkers, body measures physical activity , shift work, and subclinical metabolic and cardiovascular disease outcomes in police officers. This special issue of the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health is only a partial representation of the extensive amount of investigation resulting from the BCOPS study. As an introduction, the first paper provides an overview of health disparities in the police compared to other major health studies in the U.S. population. Findings indicate that the prevalence of depressive symptoms in police officers was nearly double (11.3% vs. 6.8%) that of the general population. Over 25% of police officers had the metabolic syndrome, a constellation of factors which are believed to increase the risk of heart disease, compared to 18.7% of the U.S. employed population. Officers also appeared to have less sleep, as they were nearly four times more likely to sleep less than six hours in a 24-hour period than the employed general population (31.4% vs. 8.0%). [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Healthcare Disparities Law Enforcement Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological Workplace
• Keywords:
  Health Disparities Job Stress Mental Health Police Officers Psychological Effects Psychological Responses Work Environment
• ISSN:
  1522-4821
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  209-210
• Volume:
  13
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20056945
• Citation:
  Int J Emerg Mental Health Hum Resil 2011 Oct; 13(4):209-210
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Public Safety
• Performing Organization:
  State University of New York at Buffalo
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20100901
• Source Full Name:
  International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience
• End Date:
  20150831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6cbb87427c6528b2c7f5d8d2dab109d6212c505e06c3f0efabcf6db05b88e104b593af1f4135a6109d435e52cafdbe31f6c32ee680ddcfe95f463d8c2b05a978
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/214433/cdc_214433_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 216.37 KB ]