Cardiovascular health profile among Québec male and female police officers

Abstract

To document the cardiovascular health profile of Québec police officers (PO). Participants answered an online questionnaire evaluating the presence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and symptoms. Two thousand, ninety-nine (2,099) male (age: 40.8 ± 9.2 years) and 756 female (age: 37.9 ± 7.9 years) PO participated in this study. The prevalence of obesity (body mass index ≥30 kg/m²) and diagnosed hypertension was respectively 21.1, and 14.3% in male and 7.3 and 4.1% in female PO. According to 2013 American College of Sports Medicine guidelines, 27.0 and 48.0% of male and 12.1 and 56.7% of female PO were categorized as being at moderate and high CVD risk, respectively. These findings suggest that Québec police departments should help PO to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle to decrease CVD risk.

Keywords:

• Law enforcement
• body mass index
• obesity
• hypertension
• physical inactivity

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

Philippe Gendron was supported by a doctoral research scholarship from Fonds de recherche du Québec en santé (FRQS). The authors thank the Association paritaire pour la santé et la sécurité du travail, secteur affaires municipales for their help in questionnaire dissemination among all police departments and unions in Québec. They also thank all police departments and unions which forwarded the web-link questionnaire and encouraged their employees/members to fill it out. Finally, the authors are indebted to all PO who participated in this survey.