BACKGROUND Obesity is of increasing concern especially among firefighters. Bias in self-reported body weight, height and body mass index (BMI) has received a great deal of attention given its importance in epidemiological field research on obesity. AIMS To determine the validity of self-reported weight, height and BMI and identify potential sources of bias in a national sample of US firefight...

BACKGROUND Rates of myocardial infarction in firefighters are increased during fire suppression duties, and are likely to reflect a combination of factors including extreme physical exertion and heat exposure. We assessed the effects of simulated fire suppression on measures of cardiovascular health in healthy firefighters. METHODS In an open-label randomized crossover study, 19 healthy firef...

CONTEXT Although decline in lung function across workshift has been observed in wildland firefighters, measurements have been restricted to days when they worked at fires. Consequently, such results could have been confounded by normal circadian variation associated with lung function. OBJECTIVES We investigated the across-shift changes in lung function of wildland firefighters, and the effec...

PURPOSE To assess the impact of very hot (45°C) conditions on the performance of, and physiological responses to, a simulated firefighting manual-handling task compared to the same work in a temperate environment (18°C). METHODS Ten male volunteer firefighters performed a 3-h protocol in both 18°C (CON) and 45°C (VH). Participants intermittently performed 12 × 1-min bouts of raking, 6 × 8-min...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND A major incident has occurred when the number of live casualties, severity, type of incident or location requires extraordinary resources. Major incident management is interdisciplinary and involves triage, treatment and transport of patients. We aimed to investigate experiences within major incident preparedness and management among Norwegian rescue workers. METHODS ...

Coronary heart disease (CHD) accounts for 39% of "on-duty" deaths in firefighters in the United States. No studies have examined the factors that distinguish fatal from nonfatal work-associated CHD events. Male firefighters experiencing on-duty CHD events were retrospectively investigated to identify cardiovascular risk factors predictive of case fatality; 87 fatalities (death within 24 hours o...

Firefighting is a stressful and hazardous job. Persons engaged in firefighting are highly exposed to work-related stress as well as to smoke containing a host of chemicals potentially harmful to human health. In order to elucidate whether firefighting affects neuroendocrine and behavioral responses of firefighters, plasma catecholamine (CA) levels and the prevalence of neurobehavioral symptoms ...

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships between obesity and measures of back and core muscular endurance in firefighters. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted in career firefighters without low back pain. Obesity measures included body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage assessed with air displacement plethysmography. Muscular endurance was assessed with the Mod...