Summary
"The physical health, psychological well-being, safety and efficiency at work are important factors for any police agency to consider. When one considers the monetary and human costs of fatigued officers, it is essential to promote scientific awareness and subsequent plausible interventions. The rate of officers dying from health related problems and accidents for example have surpassed the rate of officers dying from homicide. Fatigued or tired police officers are also a danger to themselves as well as the public they serve. Little is known of the long term impact of shift work and extended work hours on police officers, and no direct scientifically rigorous exposure assessment of shift work has yet been done. The goal of this investigation was to examine police officer exposure to shift work and the association of such exposure with adverse health and psychological outcomes. This study examined two groups of police officers. The first group consisted of 464 currently employed police officers. We assessed shift work impact on health and psychological well-being on this group based on objective day-today payroll work record data. The second group consisted of a mortality cohort (deceased officers) of ever employed police officers, 1950-2005. The cohort covered an estimated 100,000 person-years of observation and was utilized to assess the impact of shift work on causes of police officer deaths. This information was obtained from the U.S. National Death Index (classified by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), 9th edition). Risk analysis among currently employed officers was performed for outcomes of subclinical disease based on independent variables of shift work, sleep quality, stress biomarkers (cortisol), and lifestyle covariates such as physical activity, diet, smoking and alcohol abuse. Additional analysis involved calculation of risk for specific causes of death in police officers compared to the U.S. General Population and internal police comparisons by shift work patterns."--Page 1.