High Mortality Rates for Law Enforcement

[ResQ]

Anyone have a link to some data about low mortality rate careers versus high mortality rate careers. For example...numerous law enforcement people have died shortly after retirement due to the ABSENCE of stress. There are plenty of studies that show too low of a stress level is just as bad as too high. Coping strategies, performance curves, fight or flight, blah blah blah...ok fine. I got all of that. But where are the numbers. What is the real answer? Is it purely a factor of high stress? Is it a combination of diet, exercise, stress, donuts, cigarettes, emotional trauma from seeing the dark side of life on bad scenes... or is it something intangible? I want to know if I ______ everyday for my career it will make me live long enough to enjoy retirement. Eat fish twice a week, don't smoke, exercise, talk about the emotional side of things instead of bottling it up like we are so great at...vitamins, vegetables, religion, aspirin

So where is the data that compares the Yoga instructors in retirement to the cops in retirement compared to the zookeepers in retirement compared to the rocket scientist...yada yada yada?

Anyone?

[dw]

Ya' know, a lot of what gets passed down is urban legend, in my opinion. For as street-smart as cops have to be, we tend to hand down rumor and speculation surprisingly efficiently. I've wondered exactly what you asked -- where's the data? I've never seen it. Same goes with the divorce rate -- some say it's 90+% for males and almost 100% for females on the job. I just don't buy it. No doubt it's high, probably higher than average, but I don't believe 90%+

I'll avoid a rant on my opinions of marriage in the United States, but I don't think the problem is restricted to cops.

If anyone has some solid stats, please share them. I'm also curious to know how those married pre and post-Department compare in terms of divorce.

[Lucky Seven]

If you can contact the peer counseling person in the department she has the numbers. (Can't think of her name...sorry).

The average number of years from retirement to death for CHP is 3 years and the average age is is 57.

I am not familiar with the divorce rate but it is high.

[retchp]

I fluctuate between 15 and 40 pounds overweight and have done so for years. I smoked off and on over my adult life. I dipped snuff for several years. I drink, ocassionally to excess. I have been divorced three times. I have been in four crashes on the job and three off the job in my life. I have been in more fights than I can count and more arguments than that not to mention pursuits.
I am approaching 60 years of age and have been retired for four years now, so statistically I am dead.
I plan to live until I am at least 85 or 90 and then not go gently into the night, but who knows.
One of my best friends on the job was a non smoking clean living fellow who died from stomach cancer when he was 37. Another was a bicycle riding, weight lifting, running, vegetarian who drank only bottled water. He died from cancer at the age of 45. I worked with another guy who retired on a Friday and died that Sunday night of unknown natural causes.
I guess what I'm saying is that life itself is stressful and bad stuff happens (sometimes to good people). Ultimately we all die. It is the price of life.
If you want a really dangerous job become a commercial fisherman, a lumberjack (which I was at one time) or a clerk in a mini market.
One thing I will say is that old chestnut about, if I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself...becomes truer and truer.:biggrin:
Point of fact, its about genes, luck and God if you are religious.

[ResQ]

thanks all...keep this alive and I will check in next weekend.

until then I am 10-7 from here and 10-8 to the academy :smile:

[ResQ]

http://www.mindtools.com/stress/UnderstandStress/StressPerformance.htm

Here is the graph I am talking about. The idea here is fight or flight at it's most basic level. Most of the workforce barely gets into the "zone" where they have optimal performance...but the collective "We" (fire, police, EMS) strive to operate in the zone for most of our operational calls. We like to have the edge, we must have the edge. So when you condition you body to operate in the optimal zone by seeking stressful environments (adrenaline junkies) this becomes the "normal" range for your body. As soon as this goes away (retirement, for example) the LOW range is just as bad as the HIGH (or too musch stress) range. This lack of stress has the ability to kill us just as too much would make your body shut down.

So based on this premise...(and excepting the fact that there are those that will be at either end of the bell curve on averages retchp :biggrin: ) the ONLY way to survive after a lengthy career of 10-15 stress spikes per day for 20+ years(traffic stops, chases, etc) where optimal performance is required for survival...is to maintain a heightened level of stress by staying active in something that gets you worked up...even AFTER you retire. If you retire and move to that little cabin in the woods and all the stress goes away, my thought is you only have a year or two?

So then, are there ways around the stress spikes of the daily routine? Are there mechanisms in place to releive stress so that you don't have to live at that level? Is this even possible? Should I simply expect a short life span as part of the cost of doing what I enjoy? Anybody do the aspirin, salmon, garlic, exercise, lycopene, low caffeine, low alcohol lifestyle and have any words of wisdom? retchp has shown us there is still hope if we haven't...

I guess the real root of what I am asking here is this: Just as you ensure you have your equipment ready each day. Staying healthy and ready for retirement is not something you do in the last year or two. I beleive it is an everyday thing. That is why I was looking for experiences, stats, surveys, etc. Thanks for the replies.