Occupational Health Disparities: A Profile of Firefighters and Police Officers

Wohlgemuth, KJ, Conner, MJ, Burnham, E, and Mota, JA. Occupational health disparities: A profile of firefighters and police officers. J Strength Cond Res 40(3): e298-e304, 2026-Firefighters and law enforcement officers belong to a group of workers within the public safety sector in the U.S. workforce. Public safety workers have physically demanding jobs, and the effect of the specific occupation on health outcomes deserves further elucidation. The primary purpose of this study was to examine differences in demographic characteristics between police officers and firefighters. A secondary purpose was to quantify the effect of occupation on cardiopulmonary function across age. Cardiometabolic, aerobic capacity, and body composition data from yearly agency screenings were retrospectively assessed for 399 workers (firefighters, n = 200; police officers, n = 199). To quantify the influence of occupation and age on cardiopulmonary function (V̇ o2 peak, METs), separate linear mixed-effect models were employed. The a priori criterion for significance was set at p = 0.05. The results show that 90.5% of public safety workers were categorized as overweight or obese, and 50.4% were considered obese. Firefighters displayed better cardiopulmonary function (e.g., higher V̇ o2 ) than police officers (+2.05, t = 4.94, p = 0.01); however, not greater than industry recommendations. The present study indicates both public safety occupations have negative impacts on cardiopulmonary function across our sample of workers. Although, firefighters may have less impairments to health when compared with police officers.