The University of Arizona in Tucson recently received a $1million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to study firefighters’ risk of sudden death from cardiovascular disease.
The grant is one of only five $1million Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grants recently awarded by FEMA for fiscal year 2007. The FP&S grants are part of FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG), which help firefighters and other first responders obtain equipment, training and other resources needed to protect the public and emergency personnel from fire and related hazards.
Half of all firefighter deaths that occur in the line of duty (on the job) are due to sudden, severe cardiovascular incidents such as heart attacks, despite the fact that firefighters tend to be a healthy group since strength and fitness are job requirements.
“For many firefighters we don’t have a really good way to determine who is at higher risk of sudden death due to undiagnosed cardiovascular disease,” said Jefferey L. Burgess, MD, MS, MPH, principal investigator for the study. Dr. Burgess is associate professor at the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and director of the Community, Environment and Policy (CEP) Division, which is dedicated to teaching, service and research in public health policy and environmental and community health. He also is a member of the UA BIO5 Institute and the Arizona Cancer Center.
Standard risk factors, such as age, high blood pressure and family history, can help screen those more likely to die suddenly, but firefighters who don’t have symptoms of heart disease or these risk factors might still be in danger.
The two-year study will look at improved screening methods to find hidden cardiovascular disease in firefighters, identify risk factors for sudden death by heart attack while fighting fires, and investigate ways to reduce a firefighter’s risk of heart attack through workplace modifications, such as the use of special cooling gloves after the fire. Researchers will compare markers in the blood of firefighters before and after fighting fires to determine which work factors have the greatest effect on heart attack risk.
“I’m very excited about this opportunity. It is an honor to work with firefighters to help create the safest possible workplace for an inherently dangerous profession,” said Dr. Burgess, who has worked on various projects with the Tucson, Phoenix and Seattle fire departments over the past 15 years.
The study will draw on a long history of research by faculty with the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health and the UA about protecting firefighters. In addition to Dr. Burgess’s work, Wayne Peate, MD, MPH, associate professor, UA Zuckerman College of Public Health, works with the Tucson Fire Department on the detection and prevention of disease and injuries in firefighters and served as the department physician for the Tucson Fire Department and eight other local fire departments for 12 years, and Kelly Reynolds, PhD, associate professor, UA Zuckerman College of Public Health Community, Environment and Policy Division, has studied the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria in Tucson fire stations.
For more information about the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health FEMA study, visit http://publichealth.arizona.edu/news/Research/NewGrantAidsFirefighters.aspx.
For more information about the FEMA Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grants, visit http://www.firegrantsupport.com/fps/; a list of recipients of the Fiscal Year 2007 FP&S Awards is available at http://www.firegrantsupport.com/fps/award/07/Default.aspx.