Page 89 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2018

One commenter recommended adding material to the document about how shift length,
lack of sleep, interrupted sleep and fatigue afftect cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.
full-time workers, according to BLS data cited in the agenda. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and chronic diseases are the first recommendation because stress is such a big factor affecting public safety workers’ health, it says. Sudden cardiac events are re- sponsible for 7 to 22 percent of on-duty deaths among police offi- cers, 17 percent among wildland firefighters, and 11 percent among
EMS workers, it says.
Early Comments Supportive
Only a handful of comments were posted to the public docket (CDC-2018-0033) at www.regulations.gov by mid-May. All were supportive of the document.
One commenter submitted this: “I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to review the NORA Council Public Safety research agenda. Perhaps it’s anecdotal but as a retired State Trooper I’ve observed a number of former Troopers contracting brain tu- mors leading to early death. While I don’t know about specific rates of brain cancer across all disciplines of Public Safety, it is
curious to observe this. Particularly as I make a comparison to the general population (non-public safety people) that I know of with brain tumors. Based on an understanding of some of the technologies used by LE (such as radar for speed detection), as well as exposures to various environmental hazards and hazard- ous materials, and this unscientific observation of what appears to be a high rate of brain cancers in former State Troopers (in my estimation anyway), it appears to be of some consequence. Hence I am very pleased to see the research agenda include can- cer related research associated with public safety employees in general. Thank you and please continue your efforts to protect those who protect us.”
Another wrote, “The NORA Public Safety Agenda is a well crafted, well researched and comprehensive plan for addressing the most important health hazards faced by this important sector. I ap- plaud the work that NIOSH has done,” while a third commenter recommended adding material to the document about “how shift length, lack of sleep, interrupted sleep and fatigue impacts cardio- vascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases under objec- tive 1.” This commenter cited a study titled “Exploratory Study of Heart Rate Variability and Sleep among Emergency Medical Services Shift Workers,” available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/27487176, saying it “provides some evidence for the im- pact of interrupted sleep on cardiovascular health.”
Jerry Laws is the editor of Occupational Health & Safety.
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