Abstract
Background: Wildland firefighters are likely to experience heightened risks to safety, health, and overall well-being as changing climates increase the frequency and intensity of exposure to natural hazards. Working at the intersection of natural resource management and emergency response, wildland firefighters have multidimensional careers that often incorporate elements from disparate fields to accomplish the tasks of suppressing and preventing wildfires. Thus, they have distinctly different job duties than other firefighters (e.g., structural firefighters) and experience environmental health risks that are unique to their work. We conducted a systematic scoping review of scientific literature that addresses wildland firefighter environmental health. Our goal was to identify studies that specifically addressed wildland firefighters (as opposed to firefighters in a broader sense), geographic and demographic trends, sample sizes, patterns in analysis, and common categories of research. Results: Most studies have clustered in a few highly developed countries, and in the United States within California and Idaho. Many studies fail to consider the impact that demographic factors may have on their results. The number of studies published annually is increasing and themes are broadening to include social and psychological topics; however, most authors in the field have published an average of < 3 articles. Conclusions: We identify three areas that we believe are imminent priorities for researchers and policymakers, including a lack of diversity in study geography and demography, a need for more complex and interactive analyses of exposure, and prioritization of wildland firefighters in research funding and focus.
Recommended Citation
M. B. Held et al., "Environmental Health Of Wildland Firefighters: A Scoping Review," Fire Ecology, vol. 20, no. 1, article no. 16, SpringerOpen, Dec 2024.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-023-00235-x
Department(s)
Biological Sciences
Publication Status
Open Access
Keywords and Phrases
Demography; Geography; Medical; Mental health; Occupational health; Performance; Safety; Well-being
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1933-9747
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2024 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
01 Dec 2024
Comments
U.S. Department of Defense, Grant W911NF2220200