Description
Answer the following questions using single spaced 12 point font. Each question should be answered in approximately 1/3-1/2 page. Be thorough in your answer and provide any analysis where appropriate.1. Outline in detail the strategies the SDPD used to create a “culture” of officer wellness.2. According to Lee, in The Analysis of Attitudes, Programs, and Fitness Levels of Law Enforcement Officers, describe his findings of officer fitness or lack thereof. From this study, what role if any did fitness programs improve fitness levels?3. According to Mumford et. al, how well are agencies addressing the issue of officer wellness?
Unformatted Attachment Preview
The author(s) shown below used Federal funding provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice to prepare the following resource:
Document Title:
Law Enforcement Officers Safety and
Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
Author(s):
Elizabeth A. Mumford, Ph.D., Bruce G.
Taylor, Ph.D., Weiwei Liu, Ph.D., Jeremy
Barnum, Sean Goodison, Ph.D.
Document Number: 255998
Date Received:
January 2021
Award Number:
2016-IJ-CX-0021
This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of
Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the
Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference
Service.
Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and
do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview
Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
April 23, 2020
Report submitted to the National Institute of Justice
Grant # 2016-IJ-CX-0021
Elizabeth A. Mumford, Ph.D., NORC at the University of Chicago
Bruce G. Taylor, Ph.D., NORC at the University of Chicago
Weiwei Liu, Ph.D., NORC at the University of Chicago
Jeremy Barnum, Police Executive Research Forum
Sean Goodison, Ph.D., Police Executive Research Forum
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Points of views in this document are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice or any other
organization. This study was funded by the National Institute of Justice (Grant # 2016-IJ-CX-0021)
and we are grateful for this funding that allowed for secondary data analyses of STRiV data. We thank
our NIJ Project Officer Eric Martin and Senior Grants Management Specialist Cathy Girouard for their
support. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the agencies and dedicated officers who
participated in this research. Further thanks are due to the members of our Expert Panel who
collaborated in the design and review of the survey instrument: Timothy Baysinger, Sarah Creighton,
Stephen James, Tara Kelley-Baker, Sandra Ramey, Elizabeth Stanley, Darrel Stephens, Bryan Vila,
and John Violanti. We would like to thank PERF staff Nathan Ballard and Adam Kemerer and NORC
staff Meghan O’Leary, Amanda O’Keeffe, Jackie Sheridan, Katie Archambeau, Julie Banks, and
Steven Pedlow.
Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Financial Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this study to disclose.
** Address correspondence to: Elizabeth A. Mumford, Principal Research Scientist, NORC at the
University of Chicago, 4350 East West Highway, Ste. 800, Bethesda, MD 20814, [email protected]
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
BACKGROUND
Pillar six of the 2015 President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended for the USDOJ
to “enhance and further promote its multi-faceted officer safety and wellness initiative.”1 At that point,
there were clear theoretical and methodological limitations to officer safety and wellness (OSAW)
research. Other than national statistics about deaths, assaults, and traffic injuries,2-11 for the most part
OSAW studies have relied on generally small local or state samples,12,13 and fail to examine multi-level
interactions of personal, professional, or agency factors to inform improved policies and practices. While
there is growing attention to key stressors law enforcement officers (LEOs) experience,14-20 as well as
interventions to mitigate these risk factors (e.g., training in coping strategies),21-24 law enforcement
research has tended to investigate risk factors and wellness outcomes in silos, with limited contextual
measurement of individual resilience and trauma. Further attention to both agency support and individual
factors to build resiliency among LEOs is necessary.25 Intervention efforts have tended to target singular
outcomes, whereas we know from public health research that the linkages between multiple disorders
(e.g., suicidality, anger, depression, substance use) are extensive.26,27
Compared to other professionals, officers work under stressful conditions and are regularly exposed
to the risk of accidents,28,29 physical attacks,30 or other trauma.31,32 To varying degrees, LEOs are exposed
to stressors such as radiation, chemical, biological and physical risks33-59; and shift work, sleep disorders
and other negative health sequelea.60-76 Not all LEOs are able to cope with trauma (although training can
help77,78), with unresolved stress leading to chronic distress72,79,80 and/or alcohol use as a coping
strategy.81-87 In addition to the range of potential triggers for low resilience in critical incidents (e.g., prior
trauma, officer fatigue, resistance to LEA policies, etc.),88,89 LEOs also report that feelings of isolation
and lack of support by their agency following a critical incident has led to traumatic stress symptoms,
such as clinical depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation.19,85 Moreover, at the
community level, LEOs often contend with negative stereotypes due to media stories of police actions,
misconduct or corruption.90-93 Further, stress levels may be higher due to relative differences between the
majority race/ethnicity of the community and that of the officers, per the “identification” hypothesis.94 In
1
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
law enforcement, it has been found that fatigue impacts decision making and interferes with officers’
ability to assess the risks of situations,11,89,95 stress has impacts on cognitive performance,96 and
misunderstandings can erode positive agency-community relationships.24,97
The current study responds to evidence that LEOs (1) fare worse than the general population on many
health and wellness outcomes; (2) that too often relevant LEO research has been conducted without a
theoretical model to interpret the range and overlap of risk factors needed to develop sound prevention
policies and programs; and (3) LEA policies and programs to address OSAW also are limited in
scope/reach and largely untested in effectiveness. In response to these gaps, we launched a nationally
representative two-stage study with a stratified representative sample of LEAs and a representative
sample of LEOs from those agencies to document OSAW indicators within the environment of LEA
policies and programs. The specific objectives of our Officer Safety and Wellness (OSAW) initiative
were to: (1) Identify profiles of LEAs who are using best practices in addressing OSAW outcomes based
on administrative/staffing factors, policies and programs; (2) Determine the extent to which specific
occupational, organizational, and personal stressors distinguish OSAW outcomes; (3) Identify whether
modifiable factors such as coping, social support, and healthy lifestyles moderate the relationship between
stressors and OSAW outcomes; and (4) Investigate which LEA policies/programs have the potential to
moderate OSAW outcomes.
METHODS
The OSAW Sample
The sampling frame for the Officer Safety and Wellness (OSAW) Initiative was the 2017 National
Database on Law Enforcement Agencies (NDLEA).98 In the first stage of sample selection, we cleaned
the LEA sample frame. As sworn officer count is a critical variable in the sample selection process, we
imputed this variable where missing. For Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agencies, we imputed the
missing sworn officer count as the median of the nationwide sworn officer to population served ratio. For
all other agencies, we used the median sworn officer to population served ratio for the particular region
and agency type. Any agencies without LEO duties or with a sworn officer count of zero were eliminated
2
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
from the frame. All state agencies in the frame were set aside for certainty inclusion in the main sample.
After removing the state agencies from the frame, the next 75 largest agencies (using sworn officer count
as a size proxy) were included in the main sample with certainty. All remaining agencies were sorted by
census region, LEA type, and number of sworn officers, and the remainder of the sample was selected
using systematic sample selection. Reserve sample was set aside, again using systematic sample selection
following a sort by census region, LEA type, and number of sworn officers. We then flagged LEAs to be
selected for rostering. The agencies selected for rostering were sampled systematically using a sort of
census region, LEA type, and number of sworn officers. Reserve sample was also flagged for any
necessary roster replacements. During the field period, in an effort to increase the number of LEAs
represented in the OSAW project the research team decided in April 2018 to incorporate an additional
500 LEAs into the original sample.
As rostered agencies responded to the LEA survey, we implemented a
system to sample officers from the roster. Once a roster is received, we divided
the roster into males and females (as specified by LEA). We designed the
officer selection process to sample officers from responding agencies according
to the distribution in the table to the right. The officer selection program is set
up to select the appropriate number of officers from each roster to achieve the
desired officer sample size, while also oversampling females at a rate of 2:1.
The Agency-level sample description is provided in Appendix Table 1 and the
# Sworn
LEOs
1
2-5
6-9
10-25
26-50
LEO
Sample
Size
1
2
6
8
15
51-99
100-250
251-499
500-999
1000 Plus
20
35
60
80
100
Officer-level sample description is provided in Appendix Table 2.
The final sample of LEAs included n=1,135 agencies (57.7% response rate), from whom a final
sample of n=2,867 LEOs (35.6% response rate) were successfully recruited to complete surveys.
Developing the OSAW Instruments
Both the LEA and the LEO instruments drew on existing measures as cited below, reviewed in
consultation with the OSAW Expert Panel members through an iterative process (multiple conference
calls and shared documents) attentive to theory and practice, aiming to balance comprehensive coverage
3
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
with brevity of scales where possible. With consensus on the instruments, NORC IRB approval was
attained for the pilot testing phase, prior to national survey distribution, in which the research team
conducted cognitive interviews with an initial group of individuals to assess the quality of the LEA and
LEO survey instruments. Tables 1 and 2 below display LEAs that participated in the LEA (n = 9) and
LEO (n = 12) cognitive interview, respectively.
Our team used PERF’s membership to select a convenience sample of LEAs to participate in
cognitive interviews. The chief executive from selected LEAs was the initial point of contact to determine
interest and willingness to participate in the cognitive interview process. In all cases, agency executives
from participating LEAs asked a member of their command staff, or other personnel involved in OSAW
matters, to complete the cognitive interview. Prior to the LEA cognitive interviews, the research team sent
an initial draft of the LEA survey instrument to each agency representative and instructed them to
carefully review the instrument. Participants were asked to focus on the questions (i.e., wording, response
options), content, and general structure of the survey instrument and make detailed notes about any
changes they would recommend. The research team then conducted a one-hour cognitive interview by
telephone with each agency representative to discuss their feedback about the survey instrument. Through
these contacts, the research team identified LEOs who might be interested in reviewing the LEO survey
and contacted these LEOs directly to request their participation in a cognitive interview following a
similar process outlined above for LEA participants. In addition, LEO participants were provided a list of
OSAW resources and a consent form to review and were asked to provide verbal consent prior to
completing the cognitive interview by telephone.
OSAW Measures
Agency Instrument. The OSAW LEA instrument includes descriptive measures of the agency
membership (full-time sworn personnel), shifts assigned,99 community relations, agency health and
wellness policies and programs.100 The research team drew on prior agency level surveys,101 as well as the
4
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
published literature. Agency policies addressed safety equipment, pursuit policies, alert system designs102
as well as what peer support, conflict resolution and psychological services are available to LEOs.103
Officer Instrument. The baseline LEO instrument includes measures of personal demographics and
law enforcement duty assignments.104 Recognizing that individual experiences prior to entering any
occupational field are relevant to personal profiles, we measured LEOs’ adverse childhood experiences.105
Further, the instrument includes measures of health care use106 and work/lifestyle such as fruit and
vegetable consumption107 and physical activity and sedentary behavior.108
As risk factors for poor health and safety outcomes, law enforcement research has examined both
occupational and organizational stressors. We assessed the former based on Weiss et al.’s critical incident
history scale,109 with modifications and additional items drawn from Expert Panel discussion. An
additional occupational risk measured on the baseline instrument was air quality, blood-borne pathogens
and transdermal exposures.110 In terms of safety, LEOs were asked about their use of equipment (body
armor, seat belts, reflective vests),111 as well as personal involvement in traffic accidents (incidence,
related injuries, and related seat belt use). Further, as measures of potentially unskillful coping strategies,
we included behavioral outcomes assessing substance use alcohol use,112,113 and gambling behavior.114
As potential protective factors for the impact of stress on health, we fielded the Duke Social Support
Index,115,116 officers’ capacity to manage stress via the distress tolerance Scale,117 their ability to manage
their emotional response to stressful situations, whether in the moment or the aftermath, through the
Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ),118,119 and their toolbox of managing stress via the
Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations.120
Physical health measures included in the LEO survey assessed general health, diagnoses and/or
medication for hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and gastrointestinal disorders,121,122 as well as
more detailed health descriptors from the Patient Health Questionnaire.123 We assessed fatigue with the
Vital Exhaustion scale,124 and sleep disorders with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.125 From the
5
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory (DRRI),126 we also assessed neurocognitive assets, including
attention, memory, and executive functioning, which can be impaired for individuals with trauma.
Mental health measures included the Perceived Stress Scale,127 the two-item screener for depression
from the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ2), 128 the 5-item anxiety and depression screener (the Mental
Health Index) from the Short Form Health Survey-36,129 the Primary Care- PTSD Scale as a screener for
post-traumatic stress,130 and the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised.131
Finally, LEOs were also asked about their agency’s wellness programs, either offered in-house or
through a partnership with another source covering: physical fitness; general stress management,
emotional regulation skills, and/or proactive wellness / resilience programming; coping skills to manage
trauma; psychological and mental health care treatment; nutrition and dietary topics; and alcohol and
chemical dependency programming.
National Data Collection
The research team began by fielding the survey to a group of 140 pilot LEAs in September 2017. The
purpose of the pilot phase was to assess data quality and make any necessary amendments to the survey
instrument or distribution procedures prior to engaging the full LEA sample. Subsequently, the LEA
survey and roster requests were distributed to the full LEA sample in October 2017. Contacts to the
sampled LEAs began with a mailed invitation letter and hardcopy survey, followed by on average 9.6
emails (3.5 for completers; 11.9 for non-respondents), one mailed reminder letters (with hardcopy surveys
to the largest non-responding LEAs), a faxed letter, and follow-up phone calls (on average three calls to
non-responding pilot LEA; as these were largely ineffective, they were discontinued for the full sample)
throughout the field period. The final attempt to contact remaining LEAs – the “last chance” contact in
January 2019 was sent as a letter to LEAs without an email address on file or as an emailed reminder
letter for LEAs with an email address on file.
Data Analysis
Analyses were conducted in Mplus 7.4, Stata 15 and R, which allows for the use of sampling weights,
adjusts for complex sampling, and handles missing data. Post-stratification weights were applied to
6
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
ensure national representativeness. Weights were calculated with the probability of selection and adjusted
for survey non-response. For each analytic sample we examined the distribution of the data with and
without statistical weights and ran frequencies, measures of central tendency, and measures of dispersion
with study variables. Bivariate associations and multi-collinearity were investigated with crosstabulations, comparison of means, and correlation matrices. To address specific research questions,
multivariate analytic models were selected.
FINDINGS
Due to the extended field period, the findings reported here are preliminary. Agency-level outcomes
are under review132 and multiple officer-level analyses and manuscripts are under preparation. Further
detail is available from the investigators.
LEA agency programming. Taylor et al.132 assess with latent class analysis whether there are distinct
profiles of agencies with similar patterns of wellness programming and explore other agency
characteristics describing these programming profiles. We assessed whether each of the following
programming types were offered within the agency or through an external partnership: (1) physical
fitness; (2) general stress management/emotional regulation skills, and/or proactive wellness/resilience
programming; (3) coping skills to manage trauma; (4) programming or services related to nutrition and
dietary topics; (5) psychological and mental health care treatment; (6) alcohol and drug dependency
treatment for their sworn officers. Results of the profile analysis suggest that, nationally, almost twothirds of agencies offer none of these wellness supports, a quarter of agencies offer a broad range of
wellness programs and the rest offer different sets of wellness programs specialized. Geographic region,
budget, size, and type of agency are among the strongest factors that are associated with the profiles.
Shiftwork. We have conducted preliminary descriptive analyses of shiftwork as reported by the LEOs.
One-third (33.6%) of LEOs have never worked a rotating shift, 46.9% have worked a rotating shift in the
past but are not currently, and 19.5% reported currently working a rotating shift assignment. Among
responding officers who currently were working a rotating shift, 86.4% work a forward rotating shift
whereas 13.5% rotate a backwards rotating shift. We also measured officers’ extent (in years) of ever
7
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Final Summary Overview: Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study
working a rotating shift. With the limitation that these univariate data are biased by time on force, the data
indicate that more than one in four officers have worked a rotating shift for at least eleven years:
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
