Automated external defibrillator prevalence among the municipal police agencies of New Jersey: how regional differences affect national data

Abstract

As sudden cardiac death continues to be among the nation's leading causes ofmortality, interventions aimed at treatment of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) have been studied extensively. Recent investigations have examined intravenous drug administration and institution of the advanced cardiac life support algorithm, but the only therapy that has been repeatedly proven effective is early defibrillation with a manual or automatic external defibrillator (AED). In particular, the use of AEDs by law enforcement personnel has been shown to reduce time to defibrillation by an average of 4min and improve absolute survival rates by up to 8.2% for patients presenting in ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. According to the 2006 study conducted by Hawkins et al., the national prevalence of AEDs is 31.0% (95% CI: 27e36%). However, Fig. 1 may be misleading, as prevalence rates vary by geography from 10.6% in self-reported ‘urban’ areas to as