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Coronary heart disease risk in volunteer firefighters in Victoria, Australia

Version 2 2024-06-06, 08:16
Version 1 2014-12-18, 14:08
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-06, 08:16 authored by A Wolkow, K Netto, P Langridge, J Green, D Nichols, M Sergeant, Brad AisbettBrad Aisbett
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major problem for firefighters, even when considering the healthy worker effect (HWE). Although volunteer firefighters outnumber paid personnel, previous research has focused on paid US firefighters. By contrast, no CHD data for Australian firefighters exist. Risk factor data were collected from 2,943 Australian volunteer firefighters and CHD risk was compared with reference "low-risk" and Australian population data. Predicted CHD risk for male and female firefighter was 19.2% and 5.1%, respectively. Female firefighters high blood pressure and fasting glucose was significantly lower than the general population, whereas all other risk factors was similar to the general population. Firefighters' CHD risk was greater than other volunteer and paid emergency services, but the prevalence for most risk factors was similar to the general population. Therefore, Australian volunteer firefighters may not benefit from the HWE.

History

Journal

Archives of environmental and occupational health

Volume

69

Pagination

112-120

Location

Abingdon, Eng.

ISSN

1933-8244

eISSN

2154-4700

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article, C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2014, Taylor and Francis

Issue

2

Publisher

Taylor & Francis