A major goal of this study is to collect baseline physiological and psychological symptomatology measures from a randomly selected sample of Buffalo, New York police officers. This proposed goal will isolate high risk health elements in policing that can be used to plan a future prospective study of police. A second goal of the study is to compare health risks associated with police to that of a civilian control group. Police data will be compared with a current established, reliable control group selected from the population. It is hypothesized that health factors among police officers place them at a higher risk for disease than those in a matched control population. An important part of the proposed study is to assess health factors of minority and women police officers. To date, there exists little information on the health status of these groups, let alone comparisons with controls. Analysis will involve descriptive statistics, mean comparisons, and analysis of covariance to establish relationships of risk between these groups. A third goal of this proposed investigation is to assess the psychological well-being of the police sample. Research has demonstrated that police work is a high risk, high stress occupation, and that officers are adversely affected by such conditions. Data will include nine separate measures of psychological symptomatology in police officers. It is hypothesized that officers will exhibit higher symptomatology scores than non-patient norms established by the authors of this psychological measure. Results of this proposed research can be used to plan a future prospective study of the entire police department and help isolate effective interventions in the workplace.
| Violanti, John M; Charles, Luenda E; Gu, Ja K et al. (2013) Depressive symptoms and carotid artery intima-media thickness in police officers. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 86:931-42 |
| McCanlies, Erin C; Slaven, James E; Smith, Lindsay M et al. (2012) Metabolic syndrome and sleep duration in police officers. Work 43:133-9 |
| McCanlies, Erin C; Araia, Sewit Kesete; Joseph, Parveen Nedra et al. (2011) C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomology in urban police officers. Cytokine 55:74-8 |
| Charles, Luenda E; Burchfiel, Cecil M; Mnatsakanova, Anna et al. (2010) Antioxidants and pulmonary function among police officers. J Occup Environ Med 52:1124-31 |
| Violanti, John M; Burchfiel, Cecil M; Hartley, Tara A et al. (2009) Atypical work hours and metabolic syndrome among police officers. Arch Environ Occup Health 64:194-201 |
| Andrew, Michael E; McCanlies, Erin C; Burchfiel, Cecil M et al. (2008) Hardiness and psychological distress in a cohort of police officers. Int J Emerg Ment Health 10:137-47 |
