Cardiovascular disease risk factors in career firefighters: A 6-year follow-up study

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the evolution of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in career firefighters. A questionnaire was sent to a cohort of 233 Québec career firefighters in 2015 and 2021 to collect demographic and occupational information and the presence of CVD risk factors. Ninety-six (96) firefighters (1 female) responded to the questionnaire in 2015 and 2021. Body weight (2015: 88.3 ± 10.9, 2021: 89.6 ± 10.7 kg, p = 0.01), body mass index (2015: 27.6 ± 3.2, 2021: 28.0 ± 3.0 kg/m², p = 0.01), number of CVD risk factors (2015: 1.1 ± 1.0, 2021: 1.3 ± 0.9 CVD risk factors, p = 0.05), and proportion of firefighters with at least 1 CVD risk factor (2015: 71, 2021: 82%, p = 0.02) increased. Overall, our results highlight an aggravation of several CVD risk factors in Québec career firefighters over the years.

Keywords:

• Body mass index
• cardiovascular health
• firefighters
• hypertension
• obesity
• physical inactivity
• weight gain

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Professor Louis Laurencelle for the help with statistical analyzes and they are indebted to all firefighters who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.