Firefighters Versus Law Enforcement Officers: A Comparison of Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Firefighters (FFs) and law enforcement officers (LEOs) have heightened cardiovascular disease (CVD), with data suggesting that ≈45% of on-duty FF fatalities are related to CVD, while LEOs have a 1.7 times higher CVD prevalence than the general public. This study compared CVD risk biomarkers, fitness, and body composition between FFs and LEOs. Ninety-eight career, structural male FFs (age = 35.1±9.6 yrs; weight = 94.3±15.4 kg; height = 178.4±13.2 cm) and seventy-three career LEOs (age = 41.4±9.0 yrs; weight = 92.3±16.8 kg; height = 179.6±8.1 cm) from local departments were studied. Participants completed a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPXT), where VO_2max was estimated from the Foster equation. Fasted blood was collected to assess CVD risk biomarkers. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry assessed body composition, and waist and hip measures were taken. Analyses with and without women participants were conducted to assess differences in CVD risk biomarkers, fitness, and body composition between the FFs and LEOs. Effect sizes were calculated and reported as Cohen's d. Univariate general linear model (GLM) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted to account for age as a covariate, wherein partial Eta squared (η_p ²) values were used to assess effect size for the GLM statistics. FFs had higher (p<0.05) CPXT exercise times (FFs: 10.9±1.6 min; LEOs: 10.3±2.0 min; d=0.366) compared to LEOs. FFs also had higher (p<0.05) advanced oxidation protein products (FFs: 134.8±90.1 μM; LEOs: 106.8±67.6 μM; d=0.342), blood cortisol (FFs: 14.2±5.0 μg/dL; LEOs: 12.5±5.6 μg/dL; d=0.325), and waist-to-hip ratios (FF: 0.95±0.06; LEO: 0.89±0.08; d=0.792). These findings suggest that while FFs demonstrated greater CPXT time-to-exhaustion, they also expressed higher stress and CVD risk biomarkers concentrations than LEOs. These data suggest that occupation-specific characteristics and stressors may play a role in the CVD risk profile of first responders.