Health and Safety Research Projects

Improving the fitness of first responders involves studying why they become fatigued in the first place. Our Health and Safety research programs are designed to identify the causes of firefighter injury, examine the environment that surrounds the activity the injury took place in, and identify methods to improve first responder safety in the types of incidents examined.

Special examination of biological responses to different types of arduous incidents are often the first step in identifying the cause of firefighter casualties. Our projects are designed around how we currently understand the human body to respond, and setup to answer a simple problem, how can we prevent the negative biological responses and enhance the positive ones.

• Firefighter Fitness Training
  The project will track long-term health and safety of firefighters who complete the Academy with fitness training and those who do not.
   
• Heat Stress
  An examination of the biological and psychological effects of intense heat stress over on the human body.
   

• Physiological, psychological & biomechanical effects of fire fighting activities
  Examination of reasons behind the increasing porportion of injuries / fires. Despite decreasing fires, injuries remain constant.
   
• Gait & balance assessment of risk factors for trips & falls among firefighters
  Discovering the reasons for and recommending actions to reduce injuries caused to firefighters during slips, trips, and falls.