Scoping review of UK female-firefighters, physical fitness and occupational performance

Firefighting is a physically demanding occupation with sex-neutral minimum physiological performance requirements. Whilst 9% of UK firefighters are female, there has been no systematic review of scientific literature concerning their role-specific physiology and performance.

To summarise UK-based literature concerning female firefighters within four key areas: physical demands of operational tasks, testing and training, injuries, and influence of female-specific physiology on training task performance and injury.

This systematic scoping review adopted the 5-step framework for conducting scoping reviews from Arksey and O'Malley [34], alongside The SPIDER tool to identify and summarise peer-reviewed data for female UK firefighters.

Four papers were identified, including 31 females. Hose running imposed the highest physical demand on females (44.0 ml·kg-1·min-1). Mean maximal aerobic capacity values were 44.4 ± 5.5 ml·kg-1·min-1 (directly measured) and 46.9 ± 6.7 ml·kg-1·min-1 (estimated), assuming normal distribution, approximately 35% of the population would not meet the threshold of 42.3 ml·kg-1·min-1. Mean Firefighter Simulation Performance of females was 7.4 seconds slower than the passing requirements. No published data were available involving fitness interventions, injuries or female-specific considerations.

There is a paucity of UK-based research exploring the assessment, maintenance and development of physical fitness and occupational performance in female firefighters. Further research is needed to expand the current evidence-base relating to the occupational demands of female firefighters and physical fitness testing to inform policies by using a more representative evidence-base. Additionally, this work highlighted the absence of published research related to fitness training, injury surveillance and female-specific considerations.