Researchers from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences have been funded by the American Heart Association to study the culture of the fire service as it relates to health and wellness. The project will include conducting focus groups and key informant interviews with career and volunteer firefighters and fire chiefs across the country. Participating departments are needed.

A lot of attention has been paid to the idea of how the culture of the fire service influences decisions at the national, regional, local, department and individual level. It is difficult to define or identify what culture means when it comes to the fire service and how the culture translates to action. Through comprehensive conversations with fire service personnel from a variety of backgrounds, the researchers hope to gain an understanding of what factors in the fire service have an influence on improving the health of firefighters and what factors make healthy living more difficult.

For example, approximately half of line-of-duty deaths every year are the result of cardiac events. Research suggests that some of the causes of these deaths are job-related risks like extreme physical exertion and chemical exposure. There also are other modifiable risk factors that contribute to increased risk of death such as physical activity and nutrition. The research team wants to understand how both of these influence personal health choices.

The fire service has assumed increasing responsibility not only for fires but as the first responders for nearly every emergency and disaster that occurs in a community. As a result, the fire service has become one of the most important links on our public health safety net. Fire service employees must be ready to respond to emergencies under challenging environmental conditions at a moment’s notice and, once on the scene of an emergency incident, are entirely responsible for the safety of the crew they work with.

As firefighter Steve Mast said, “Once we hit the scene of an incident, your risk factors become my risk.” Health and wellness as a firefighter is about more than individual choices and risk factors. It is about the risk to the crew in an emergency setting.

The researchers are currently recruiting departments to participate in the project. Focus groups will be completed to create a picture of firefighter’s attitudes, opinions and beliefs about how the fire service promotes good and bad health choices. Fire chief interviews will be used to determine opinions, attitudes and perceptions of fire service leaders with regard to health and safety. Participating departments also will be asked to provide the researchers with any of their standard operating guidelines related to health and wellness.

This project will provide a comprehensive picture of how cultural factors within the fire service community affect key cardiovascular-health indicators and how leadership choose and monitor cardiovascular-health promotion programs. The results will be used to influence prevention and intervention efforts to improve the health of the fire service.

Participation in the data collection will be completely voluntary and all responses will be treated as confidential by the researchers. Departments interested in participating in focus groups and interviews can contact Dr. Sara Pyle at 816-460-0589 or spyle@kcumb.edu . Department selection will begin April 1.