Police officers in the United States face 30 to 70 times higher risk for sudden cardiac death during stressful work like chasing and restraining criminals than those who perform normal duties and non-stressful work. This is based on a new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA).
Dr. Stefanos Kales, associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health, physical training activities that police don't believe to be stressful were linked with 20 to 25 fold higher sudden cardiac death risk than other normal duty work.
In a research done before, they found out that fire fighters are also at higher risk of sudden cardiac death when they are on duty or putting out fire. They therefore hypothesized that during stressful activities at work, policemen will also experience the magnitude of sudden cardiac death. "Although we suspected that strenuous police duties could trigger sudden cardiac deaths in vulnerable officers, we were struck by the magnitudes of the risks and their consistency across different statistical models," added Kales.
They studies 441 sudden cardiac deaths among police officers from 1984 to 2010. The duty related to 431 cases was identified. They integrated the information on sudden cardiac deaths and the proportion of time that they spend on duties from surveys done by the police officers. The data were provided by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the Office Down Memorial Page.
Kales confirmed that it is important to keep in mind that deaths happen infrequently. The risk is small as it is computed to be two to four deaths per 10,000 officers per year. Most of the deaths were linked to strenuous and stressful activities while they were on duty like restraining a criminal, chasing them and even during altercations.
In summary, when they compared the risk with non-critical duties, they found out that the risk was 34 to 69 times higher during when police are doing restrains and altercations, 32 to 51 times higher during chases and 20 times higher when they perform physical training.
Kales reiterated on the importance of having a healthy lifestyle to curb the incidence of SCD among policemen such as maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy blood pressure and good cholesterol levels.
The study was published online last November 18, 2014 in BMJ (British Medical Journal).