Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Jan 21:14:2.
doi: 10.1186/s12995-018-0221-x. eCollection 2019.

A systematic review on occupational hazards, injuries and diseases among police officers worldwide: Policy implications for the South African Police Service

Gift Gugu Mona  1 , Moses John Chimbari  1 , Charles Hongoro  2
Affiliations
Review

A systematic review on occupational hazards, injuries and diseases among police officers worldwide: Policy implications for the South African Police Service

Gift Gugu Mona et al. J Occup Med Toxicol. .

Abstract

Background: Occupational hazards, injuries and diseases are a major concern among police officers, including in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is limited locally relevant literature for guiding policy for the South African Police Service (SAPS). The purpose of this review was to describe the occupational hazards, injuries and diseases affecting police officers worldwide, in order to benchmark policy implications for the SAPS.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies using Google Scholar, PubMed and Scopus.

Results: A total of 36 studies were included in this review. Six revealed that police officers' exposure to accident hazards may lead to acute or chronic injuries such as sprains, fractures or even fatalities. These hazards may occur during driving, patrol or riot control. There were two studies, which confirmed physical hazards such as noise induced hearing loss (NIHL), due to exposure to high levels of noise. Three studies on chemical hazards revealed that exposure to high concentrations of carbon dioxide and general air pollution was associated with cancer, while physical exposure to other chemical substances was linked to dermatitis. Four studies on biological hazards demonstrated potential exposure to blood borne diseases from needle stick injuries (NSIs) or cuts from contaminated objects. One study on ergonomic hazards showed that musculoskeletal disorders can result from driving long distances and lifting heavy objects. There were 15 studies that indicated psychological hazards such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as stress. Moreover, four studies were conducted on organizational hazards including burnout, negative workplace exposure and other factors.

Conclusions: This review outlined the global impact of occupational hazards, injuries and diseases in the police force. It served as a benchmark for understanding the policy implications for South Africa, where there is paucity of studies on occupational health and safety.

Keywords: Occupational hazards; Occupational health and safety; Occupational injuries; Police and occupational diseases; Stress; Work injury.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

GGM is currently studying towards a PhD in the University of KwaZulu-Natal, with research focus on the “occupational health and safety among police officers in the Gauteng province of South Africa”. MJC is a Research Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s College of Health Sciences and has supervised a number of PhD students. CH is a Deputy Executive Director at the Research Use and Impact Assessment, Human Sciences Research Council and has also supervised a number of PhD students in different fields.The authors declare that they have no competing interests in this section.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Types of duties related to sudden cardiac death summary of police officers. Source: Varvarigou et al. (2014) [20]
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The relative risk of sudden cardiac death based on duties performed by police officers. Source: Varvarigou et al. (2014) [20]
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The cost implications of occupational injuries and diseases. Source: Van Ooteghem (2006) [32]
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
PRISMA flow diagram
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Number of articles included in the study by country
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
The types of pain on body parts as reported by police officers. Source: Cho et al. (2014) [55]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. International Labour Organization. Safety and Health at Work. Geneva: International Labour. Office. 2016. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/safety-and-health-at-work/lang--en/inde....
    1. Alexanderson K, Svedberg PIA, Ko J. Sickness absence among women and men in the police: A systematic literature review. Scand J Public Health. 2009;5:30–35. - PubMed
    1. Takala J, Hämäläinen P, Saarela KL, Yun LY, Manickam K, Jin TW, et al. Global estimates of the burden of injury and illness at work in 2012. J Occup Environ Hyg. 2014;11(5):326–337. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Goldstein G, Helmer M, Fingerhut R, Organisation IL, FI of O H, Goldstein G, et al. African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety. In. Finland: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, vol. 11; 2001.
    1. Aidoo H, Essuman A, Aidoo P, Yawson AO, Yawson AE. Health of the corporate worker: health risk assessment amongstaff of a corporate organization in Ghana. J Occup Med Toxicol. 2015;10(30):1–6. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources