Objective

1. Developing a Firefighter Occupational Health Questionnaire Using Focus Groups: the FORWARD studyBongKyoo Choi, Marnie Dobson, Peter Schnall, Leslie Israel, Javier Garcia, Erin Wigger, Paul Landsbergis, Dean Baker The 139th APHA Conference, Washington DC, October 31, 2011 Background – FORWARD study Objective • Developing a firefighter work and health questionnaire to be used for exploring occupational and behavioral risk factors for obesity and heart disease in OCFA firefighters Why? • Sources of Occupational Stress (SOOS) (Beaton et al., 1993) – developed on firefighters/paramedics in WA. But it does not measure shift-work related job demands of firefighters in the questionnaire (e.g., # of calls per shift, overtime, and consecutive shifts) and includes only a few items on diet and exercise. • Standard questionnaires – developed for use in general working populations. Their relevance to firefighters should be reviewed by firefighters. FORWARD (Firefighter Obesity Research: Workplace Assessmentto Reduce Disease) study: This study is funded by the CDC/NIOSH (2010-2012, Grant Award #: 1R21OH009911) and supported by the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) and International Association of Fire Fighter (IAFF) Local 3631. The main aim of this study is to explore occupational and behavioral risk factors for obesity in firefighters. 4 Focus Groups of Firefighters (N=20) • 2 focus groups with firefighters/engineers (n=11) at a local station and UCI-COEH • 1 focus group with captains (n=4) at OCFA headquarters • 1 focus group with battalion chiefs (n= 5) at a local station Focus Group (90 minutes) Procedure Introduce the purposes of the FORWARD study and Focus group (IRB Study Information Sheet) A brief free-talk about the causes of obesity in firefighters Review working-conditions in the questionnaire and identify missing areas (domains) Review questions in the questionnaire and discuss alternative questions and wordings Discuss firefighter health behaviors Conclusions and Implications • The focus groups pointed to the possibility of significant differences in the interpretation of questionnaire items by rank of firefighters. Focus groups proved to be a very effective method for developing a firefighter occupational health questionnaire. • It will be used for the 15-month survey starting May 23, 2011 at UCI-COEH. It will be further validated through the survey and sub-study (starting July 2011). The current version is available to other researchers. Contact: Dr. BongKyoo Choi (b.choi@uci.edu) • Measures of Job Control , Job Demands, and Job Strain at both T1 and T2 • Job control*: (skill discretion + decision authority) – 5 items (e.g., How often do you learn new things at work?). • Job demands* - 3 items (e.g., How often do you have too many demands made on you?). • Creating 9 groups for cumulative exposure profiles of job control and job demands: (e.g., job control) - Continuous job control scores both at T1 and at T2 were first divided into three groups (low, middle, and high) and they were used for creating 9 (=3x3) exposure combinations of job control between T1 and T2. • LowLow (low control at T1 and low control at T2); LowHigh; HighLow; HighHigh; and Middle (LowMiddle, MiddleLow, MiddleMiddle, MiddleHigh, and HighMiddle – these 5 middle groups were combined into one group for a simpler analysis). • Job Strain: A combination of job control and job demands (Karasek, 1979): high strain (low control and high demand) vs. low strain (the other three combinations).