Citation

Hartley TA, Knox SS, Fekedulegn D, Barbosa-Leiker C, Violanti JM, Andrew ME, Burchfiel CM. J. Environ. Public Health 2012; 2012: 861219.

Affiliation

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA. thartley@cdc.gov

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Hindawi Publishing)

DOI

10.1155/2012/861219

PMID

22315628

PMCID

PMC3270419

Abstract

Policing is one of the most dangerous and stressful occupations and such stress can have deleterious effects on health. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between depressive symptoms and metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) in male and female police officers from two study populations, Buffalo, NY and Spokane, WA. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. MetSyn was defined using the 2005 AHA/NHBLI guidelines. Analysis of covariance was used to describe differences in number of MetSyn components across depressive symptom categories. The number of MetSyn components increased significantly across categories of CES-D for Spokane men only (p-trend = 0.003). For each 5-unit increase in CES-D score, odds increased by 47.6% for having hypertriglyceridemia, by 51.8% for having hypertension, and by 56.7% for having glucose intolerance. Exploring this association is important since both are predictors of future chronic health problems and the results could be helpful in developing future gender-specific prevention and intervention efforts among police officers.

Language: en