FIREFIGHTER PERCEPTION OF CANCER RISK
Recent epidemiological research on firefighters indicates an increased incidence of specific types of cancer. Intervention is needed in the fire service yet little is known about how firefighters perceive their cancer risk.
Participant observation and focus group data were collected from 15 fire stations in South Florida. Firefighters had at least 3 years of experience, ranks included drivers, captains, lieutenants, and specialty captains, with a median age of 51 years.
Hierarchy of Contamination Control
The international fire service community is actively engaged in a wide range of activities focused on development, testing, and implementation of effective approaches to reduce exposure to contaminants and the related cancer risk. However, these activities are often viewed independent of each other and in the absence of the larger overall effort of occupational health risk mitigation. This narrative review synthesizes the current research on fire service contamination control in the context of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
Hierarchy of Controls, a framework that supports decision making around implementing feasible and effective control solutions in occupational settings.
Meta-analysis of Mortality of FF Cancer
Firefighters are faced with a broad range of toxic exposures during the course of their work. Several of these exposures include known and suspected chemical carcinogens, radiologic exposures, and shift work.
Greater knowledge of toxicant exposures has led to increasing interest in the relationship between firefighting and the development of cancer. Meta-analytic studies provide the unique benefit of combining results from various studies. The current study is an update to the previously published work and provides an update to the work from 2008 to 2020.
Wildland Firefighter Smoke Exposure and Risk of Lung Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality
Wildland firefighters are exposed to wood smoke, which contains hazardous air pollutants, by suppressing thousands of wildfires across the U. S. each year. We estimated the relative risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality using estimations of the daily dose of wildfire smoke, wildland firefighter breathing rates, daily shift duration (hours per day) and frequency of exposure (fire days per year and career duration).