Citation

Schram B, Orr R, Hinton B, Pope R, Norris G. Ergonomics 2019; ePub(ePub): 1-8.

Affiliation

New South Wales Police Force - Occupational Safety and Skills Command , Sydney , Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00140139.2019.1648878

PMID

31343395

Abstract

A study was conducted in which 11 police officers wore one of three different types of Individual Light Armour Vests (ILAV), or normal station wear, for an entire day while completing power and agility-based tasks including a vertical jump (VJ), agility test, 20m sprint and counter movement jump (CMJ). Despite all three ILAVs being significantly (p<.05) heavier than normal station wear, there were no significant differences between any of the ILAVs in VJ, time to complete the agility test, 20 m sprint time, peak force, velocity, power and jump distance in the CMJ. There was a significantly (p<.05) higher mean force produced in the CMJ while wearing all three ILAVs. The ILAV's investigated do not appear to be heavy enough to significantly affect the power or agility of police officers. The utilization of ILAVs by police officers does not appear to hinder policing tasks that involve agility or power development. Practitioner Summary: The addition of the extra load of military styled body armour is known to decrease performance and mobility. When compared to normal station wear, the wearing of three different ILAV types used in policing don't appear to be heavy enough to affect the power or agility of police officers.

Language: en

Keywords

law enforcement; load; occupational health and safety; personal protective equipment