No description available.

BACKGROUND: Formalized risk management (RM) is an internationally accepted process for reducing hazards in the workplace, with defined steps including hazard scoping, risk assessment, and implementation of controls, all within an iterative process. While required for all industry in the European Union and widely used elsewhere, the United States maintains a compliance-based regulatory structure, rather than one based on systematic, risk-based methodologies. Firefighting is a hazardous profession, with high injury, illness, and fatality rates compared with other occupations, and implementation of RM programs has the potential to greatly improve firefighter safety and health; however, no descriptions of RM implementation are in the peer-reviewed literature for the North American fire service. METHODS: In this paper we describe the steps used to design and implement the RM process in a moderately-sized fire department, with particular focus on prioritizing and managing injury hazards during patient transport, fireground, and physical exercise procedures. Hazard scoping and formalized risk assessments are described, in addition to the identification of participatory-led injury control strategies. Process evaluation methods were conducted to primarily assess the feasibility of voluntarily instituting the RM approach within the fire service setting. RESULTS: The RM process was well accepted by the fire department and led to development of 45 hazard specific-interventions. Qualitative data documenting the implementation of the RM process revealed that participants emphasized the: value of the RM process, especially the participatory bottom-up approach; usefulness of the RM process for breaking down tasks to identify potential risks; and potential of RM for reducing firefighter injury. CONCLUSIONS: As implemented, this risk-based approach used to identify and manage occupational hazards and risks was successful and is deemed feasible for U.S. (and other) fire services. While several barriers and challenges do exist in the implementation of any intervention such as this, recommendations for adopting the process are provided. Additional work will be performed to determine the effectiveness of select controls strategies that were implemented; however participants throughout the organizational structure perceived the RM process to be of high utility while researchers also found the process improved the awareness and engagement in actively enhancing worker safety and health.

Previous research has shown that firefighters and emergency services personnel are at increased risk of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury compared to other U.S. workers. Analyses of injury and workers’ compensation claims data in this population has demonstrated that injuries are both common and an economic burden on the fire service, especially those caused by overexertion and that lead to sprains/strains. The increased risk of injury is associated with specific job tasks, including physical exercise, patient transport and fireground work, and with personal characteristics such as physical fitness. The economic evaluation of injury and injury prevention can help inform decision making on the part of leadership, including the identification and evaluation of potential targets for injury prevention programs. The aims of the current study were to: 1) evaluate a fitness intervention for new firefighters in terms of health, fitness, injury outcomes as well as workers’ compensation claims costs; 2) to analyze workers’ compensation claims data for trends in cause and injury type, as well as the effect of worker age; and 3) to model the expected change in back injury frequency and costs among emergency medical services personnel following the implementation of electrically powered stretchers. Primary data for the current study, including injury surveillance and workers’ compensation claims data, were provided by the Tucson Fire Department (TFD), Tucson, Arizona. The Probationary Firefighter Fitness Program (PFF-Fit) was designed by University of Arizona researchers in partnership with TFD. The program was implemented in the 2012 recruit academy. Outcomes, including measures of health and fitness, injury, workers’ compensation claim frequency and claims costs, were measured over 17 consecutive months for the intervention class, and compared to outcomes from controls comprised of the three most recent TFD recruit classes for the same time period. Comparing the intervention class to controls, health and fitness outcomes were statistically equivalent. The intervention group experienced statistically significantly fewer injuries, filed significantly fewer claims, and accrued aggregated claims costs approximately $33,000 less than the controls with an estimated equivalent reduction in indirect costs for a total of $66,000. The program implementation costs were nearly $69,000, leading to a one-year return on investment of -0.52 if based only on direct costs (workers’ compensation claims) or -0.048 if an estimate of indirect costs is included. Injury in the U.S. fire service has been the subject of many previous studies but the pattern of workers’ compensation claims has been studied much less frequently. Specifically, the effect of increasing worker age on the frequency and cost of claims has not been studied in this population. Routine injury surveillance and workers’ compensation data from TFD were merged and costs were described by mechanism of injury, injury type, body region and by age of the worker. The analysis of claims data shows that acute overexertion injuries are significantly more costly than injuries caused by other mechanisms, and that sprain/strain injuries are significantly costlier than other injury types. Results also show that age is an important predictor of claims cost in this population, with claims costs for firefighters over age 50, 120 to 144% greater than claims for workers under age 30. Back injury is common and costly among emergency services employees, including firefighters and emergency medical services providers, who transport patients. Previous research has demonstrated that electrically powered stretchers (EPS), which lift and lower the patient and stretcher between the loading and transport positions, are an effective means of reducing back injury among emergency medical services (EMS) providers, but to date no economic evaluation of this device has been conducted. A Markov decision analysis model simulation of a cohort of emergency services employees for incident back injury, disability and associated costs was used to compare outcomes with and without the use of the EPS. Implementation of the EPS resulted in an average cost savings of $4,617-$5,422 per emergency services employee over the service life of the equipment. Results of the current study show the PFF-Fit program may be a worthwhile program to reduce injury and claims costs but further research is needed to better understand the program’s potential effectiveness. We observed reductions in injury frequency and compensation costs among PFF-Fit program participants compared to controls; however, the mechanisms by which the PFF-Fit program were believed to be effective did not appear to be responsible for this difference. Workers’ compensation claims data analysis results continue to highlight the importance of targeting injuries caused by acute overexertion and injuries that result in sprain/strain. The results also indicate that targeting injury prevention efforts toward the specific needs of older workers may lead to important cost savings for the fire service. The EPS is likely an effective intervention to reduce back injuries and claims costs among fire and emergency services personnel, but further research is needed to evaluate injury and claims costs following implementation at several departments.

At its heart, homeland security is a challenge of coordination;(Kettl 2003; Kettl 2004; Waugh and Tierney 2007) however, coordination is an ambiguous term that is difficult to define or measure (Selznick 1984). To build a coordinated homeland security system, the federal government has introduced a number of policy changes including introduction of the Urban Area Security Area Initiative (UASI). (DHS, 2007) Given that over 80% of the nation's population lives in metropolitan urban regions, (Bureau 2008) homeland security threat, risk, and funding is weighed heavily towards protecting these areas. UASI provides funding to high risk/high population urban areas and is designed to build coordinated regional metropolitan homeland security systems. To meet UASI funding requirements, the nation's largest and most vulnerable metropolitan areas have formed regional homeland security networks. While the National Capital Region (NCR) UASI is representative of the challenges other areas face, the nature of metropolitan regionalism and distilled federalism creates complexity few other homeland security networks face. Policy and service delivery co-exist at the operational/technical levels of the sub-network and better understanding how agencies, functions, and nodes coordinate is important to shaping future homeland security policies. This research studies how one functional node of the regional metropolitan homeland security network, the NCR fire service, coordinates its UASI funding requests throughout the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 grant cycle. Examining the historical context of regional coordination and formal structures and informal elements the research identified nine characteristics of coordination as it is practiced at the operational/technical level of the network. These characteristics include elements such as standardized national policy direction, leadership, organizational commitment, trusted relationships, shared purpose, political support, time, balance of formal and informal elements, and balance between operational and administrative responsibilities. The research builds on Kettl's concept of contingent coordination by describing how the practice of coordination occurs within the homeland security network and begins to expand our understanding of how we organize, integrate, and coordinate a national model. The research also provides important insight into the translation of policy to operations by describing how technical subject matter experts coordinate both operationally and administratively within the homeland security network. / Ph. D.

We present a methodology for improving the detection of outlying Fire Service’s reports based on domain knowledge and dialogue with Fire & Rescue domain experts. The outlying report is considered as element which is significantly different from the remaining data. Outliers are defined and searched on the basis of domain knowledge and dialogue with experts. We face the problem of reducing high data dimensionality without loosing specificity and real complexity of reported incidents. We solve this problem by introducing a knowledge based generalization level intermediating between analysed data and experts domain knowledge. In the methodology we use the Formal Concept Analysis methods for both generation appropriate categories from data and as tools supporting communication with domain experts. We conducted two experiments in finding two types of outliers in which outliers detection was supported by domain experts.

Previous research on the mental health of firefighters has shown that they are at a greater risk than the majority of the population to develop various mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse, suicidal ideation, and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, very little research has been done on the repetitive cumulative exposure to trauma that is associated with their career, which may lead to elevated levels of mental disorders that may not be detected in one testing. In this study, a series of assessments will be given to a sample of urban firefighters every year for the entirety of their career. The data collected in this study will be analyzed at each testing date using simple regressions, and then the data will be analyzed using time series analysis. The results of this study predict that as a career in the fire service progresses, as age increases, as the average hours of sleep decrease, as their rank within the department rises, as the number or critical incidents attended, and as the number of critical incident stress debriefings attended increase, all of the mental disorders measures will increase. Not only do the simple regressions show evidence of an increased aptitude for mental illness, but also the time series analysis will show that the mental illnesses continue to amplify throughout a career in the fire service. The results of this study could have massive implications for the fire service’s treatment of mental health stigmatization.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand experiences voluntary turnover at local volunteer fire brigades. The purpose of the quantitative component of this sequential explanatory study was to examine the relationship between volunteer chief fire officers' leadership styles, perceptions of organizational support, and voluntary firefighter turnover; the purpose of the qualitative component was to explore strategies that volunteer chief fire officers used to reduce volunteer firefighter turnover. The population for the quantitative study was 21 volunteer chief fire officers, and the population for the qualitative study was 6 volunteer firefighters. The theoretical frameworks that grounded this study were transformational leadership theory (TL) and organizational support theory (OST). The data collection process for the quantitative component was 2 surveys, and the data analysis process was Pearson's correlation. The data collection process for the qualitative component was face-to-face, semistructured interviews, and the data analysis process was thematic analysis. The quantitative results showed a significant statistical relationship between OST and turnover (p.001). The qualitative results yielded 5 themes for strategies that reduce firefighter turnover: family acknowledgment and involvement, a positive culture and satisfaction, robust vetting and induction processes, flexibility in training, and communication and recognition. The implications for positive social change included the identification of strategies for fire service leaders to use in promoting the worth, dignity, and development of volunteers, to foster unity and enhance safety within communities.

Despite improved technology and equipment and a steady decline of structure fires, firefighter line-of-duty deaths and injury rates have increased over the past 10 years. Independent reports indicated poor decision-making by fire ground incident commanders (FGCs) as the primary cause of deaths and injuries. FGCs are vulnerable to skill decay given the expertise needed to manage an incident and limited opportunities to remain proficient. Guided by skill decay theory, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between skill decay among FGCs and experience, drilling and training opportunities (overlearning), years of experience, and time since initial training. A web-based survey was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 376 certified fire department officers. Findings from multiple linear regression analysis indicated that time since initial training in a fire command training program was significantly related to skill retention among FGCs (p = .008). Experience, drilling and training opportunities (overlearning), and years of experience in the fire service were not significantly related to skill retention. Findings may be used to strengthen fire service policies and reduce loss of life and property damage in the fire service and communities.

No description available.

We present a methodology for improving the detection of outlying Fire Service’s reports based on domain knowledge and dialogue with Fire & Rescue domain experts. The outlying report is considered as element which is significantly different from the remaining data. Outliers are defined and searched on the basis of domain knowledge and dialogue with experts. We face the problem of reducing high data dimensionality without loosing specificity and real complexity of reported incidents. We solve this problem by introducing a knowledge based generalization level intermediating between analysed data and experts domain knowledge. In the methodology we use the Formal Concept Analysis methods for both generation appropriate categories from data and as tools supporting communication with domain experts. We conducted two experiments in finding two types of outliers in which outliers detection was supported by domain experts.