Since 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice has funded NORC at the University of Chicago in conducting a nationally representative study, the Officer Safety and Wellness (OSAW) Initiative.
NORC researchers designed a probability-based sample of municipal, county, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and state police/highway patrol law enforcement agencies around the United States. Following an agency-level survey, NORC randomly selected officers (oversampling female officers to support subgroup analyses) from participating agencies to receive an invitation to an officer-level survey. In partnership with the Police Executive Research Forum, NORC has been collecting measures of exposure to critical incidents, diagnosed health conditions, officer safety, wellness indicators, coping strategies, and resilience. Baseline OSAW Initiative data were collected from August 2017 to February 2019 and have led to the release of five peer-reviewed studies on officer safety and wellness.
Other studies based on other professions—such as the Nurses’ Health Study (1976–present), the Physicians’ Health Study (1980–2011), and the Women’s Health Study (1993–present)—have looked at data over time and made critical contributions to understanding the impact of shift work on health and to health policy recommendations that affect all.1 The OSAW Initiative aims to document the stressors, safety, and health of police for similar reasons—law enforcement is a profession that is integral to the quality of life of U.S. communities, so understanding and supporting the well-being of police is beneficial to all.
The research team wants the results coming out of the OSAW Initiative to be shared with the law enforcement community, both with officers themselves and with the agency, municipal, county, and state leadership making budgetary and agency programming decisions. Based on analyses of survey responses from this nationally representative OSAW Initiative sample, most law enforcement officers are healthier than the average U.S. adult—good news for officers, their families, and the public safety mission they serve.2 However, one-third of respondent officers report moderate or broader health concerns. These officers are more likely to report emotional distress, perceptions of stress, physical health problems, and suicidality than their healthier colleagues.
Specific indicators of health and wellness measured through the OSAW Initiative may be helpful for planning agency-level support for officers. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was reported by nearly 12 percent of officers who responded to the OSAW Initiative survey, whereas other researchers have estimated that about 4 percent of the general population has to cope with PTSD.3 This is valuable information and, along with updates from subsequent waves of the OSAW Initiative data collection (wave 2 data were collected over the period of January 2020—January 2021), may inform departmental policy. Innovations are coming with support from the COPS Office Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act (LEMHWA) Program; however, there is more work to be done to remove the stigma for officers to admit that they were negatively impacted during a critical incident or that they have developed negative coping habits.
The OSAW Initiative researchers also asked officers if a health professional had diagnosed them with hypertension (32 percent), high cholesterol (31 percent), sleep apnea (14 percent), diabetes (6 percent), or gastrointestinal disorders (24 percent).4 Generally speaking, and taking into account age differences in samples, law enforcement officers are less likely to have diabetes and have similar rates of hypertension and sleep apnea as other U.S. adults.5 Multiple studies have reported on the long-term risks of heart disease in law enforcement; the OSAW Initiative found that officers’ risk of high cholesterol, a key marker for heart disease, is about three times that of other U.S. adults. Because hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes are all associated with a higher risk for heart disease—and the increased risk of these conditions among officers who have a history of shift work—these are important conditions to monitor with officers’ medical health care providers if symptoms are present.6
The OSAW Initiative results also demonstrate how resilient police officers can be, despite the tough job. For example, other than PTSD, their self-reported mental health is actually better than that of the average person, and they are less likely to have suicidal ideation.7 Officers are also about half as likely as other Americans to smoke conventional combustible cigarettes, which is the largest single preventable cause of heart disease and lung cancer. Officers are about half as likely as other U.S. adults to report moderate or severe physical health problems.8 These are strengths to build on through individual efforts and agency-level programming.
Whether a line officer or a commanding officer, knowing more about relative health risks can help officers support each other on and off duty. Resources are available from within the law enforcement community (see sidebar). While individuals and agencies can begin to take these practical steps, the OSAW Initiative will continue to provide reliable data to inform stakeholders’ decision-making. Forthcoming studies will look at what agencies are offering to address wellness programming, on-duty use of safety equipment, and how officers perceive prestige in the profession of policing in 2020–2021. These data will be triangulated with perceptions about how those feelings relate to officer stress, resiliency, and more. d
Notes:
1See “Key Research Findings” from the Nurses Health Study; “Physicians’ Health Study,” website; and “Women’s Health Study,” website.
2Elizabeth A. Mumford, Weiwei Liu, and Bruce G. Taylor, “Profiles of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers’ Physical, Psychological, and Behavioral Health: Results From a Nationally Representative Survey of Officers,” Police Quarterly 24, no. 3, (September 2021): 357–381.
3Mumford, Liu, and Taylor, “Profiles of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers’ Physical, Psychological, and Behavioral Health.”
4Elizabeth A. Mumford, Weiwei Liu, Bruce G. Taylor, and Sandra Ramey, “Profiles of US Law Enforcement Officers’ Diagnosed Health Conditions: Results From a Probability-Based Sample of Officers,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 63, no. 5 (May 2021): 422–431.
5Mumford, Liu, Taylor, and Ramey, “Profiles of US Law Enforcement Officers’ Diagnosed Health Conditions.”
6Elizabeth A. Mumford, Poulami Maitra, Weiwei Liu, and Bruce G. Taylor, “A Nationally Representative Study of Law Enforcement Shiftwork and Health Outcomes,” Journal of Occupational & Environmental Hygiene 18, no. 4–5 (April–May 2021): 192–202.
7Mumford, Liu, and Taylor, “Profiles of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers’ Physical, Psychological, and Behavioral Health.”
8Mumford, Liu, and Taylor, “Profiles of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers’ Physical, Psychological, and Behavioral Health.”
