Pre-employment screening and health management for safety forces-methods and techniques

The purpose of this clinical report is to describe the process by which safety forces (police and fire) are tested prior to employment (pre-employment screening) and the periodic evaluations used to maintain such standards. The process began by testing 350 male police volunteers and developing a series of age stratified norms. These norms are used to compare incoming recruits such that candidates of a given age are compared to norms developed from police officers of the same age. The purposes of this report are to describe the clinical tests used in the pre-employment screening, to report the normative data and to describe the methods of comparing data obtained from applicants to the established norms. The proper management of high risk employees through pre-employment screening and intervention programs has been viewed as being necessary both for the individual employee in reducing injury and disease and for the municipality for cost saving purposes. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 1990;11(9):398-401.