Occupational Stress Injuries: Operational and Organizational Stressors Among Public Safety Personnel

This book explores the stress faced by public safety professionals across an array of occupational fields, such as police, correctional officers, paramedics, and firefighters.

Bringing together leading scholars from around the world, it showcases cutting edge quantitative and qualitative research from across three continents and multiple regions within six countries, introduces key concepts related to occupational and organizational stressors, and provides an overview of the state of current research in key topic areas. Those who have yet to be exposed to the concepts associated with occupational stress injuries, or to the range of theories and methodologies, will be provided with an informative introduction to this topic. It explores the state of current literature on this topic, identifies gaps in our knowledge and approaches to understanding the relationship between occupational stressors and different outcomes, and provides potential responses for reducing or ameliorating occupational stressors experienced by public safety personnel.

Aimed at students, academic researchers, public safety practitioners, law enforcement analysts, and public policy-makers, this book will appeal to readers who have some knowledge in this area and are interested in learning more about new and emerging research, as well as those who are well-versed on this topic.

Rosemary Ricciardelli is Professor in the School of Maritime Studies, and Research Chair in Safety, Security, and Wellness, at Memorial University’s Fisheries and Marine Institute, Canada. Elected to the Royal Society of Canada, her research centers on evolving understandings of gender, vulnerabilities, risk, and experiences and issues within different facets of the criminal justice system.

Joy C. MacDermid is Professor in the School of Physical Therapy at Western University, Canada, and the Scientific Director of FIREWELL, an independent knowledge translation platform and research collaborative with firefighters. Her research includes public safety personnel and Veteran health, work injury, and implementation science.

Lorna Ferguson is a PhD(c) at Western University, Canada, and the Founder of the Missing Persons Research Hub. She has a broad interest in criminal justice research and developing evidence-based approaches to policing and crime prevention, including issues related to crime concentration, cybercrime, drug crises, and police reform. Her specialization is police responses to missing persons.