Abstract
Policing duties may inherently be dangerous due to stab, blunt trauma and ballistic threats. The addition of individual light armor vests (ILAVs) has been suggested as a means to protect officers. However, the addition of the extra load of the ILAV may affect officer ability to conduct occupational tasks. The purpose of this study was to determine if wearing any of three different ILAVs made by different companies with their preferred materials and designs (ILAV A, 4.68 percent body weight, ILAV B, 4.05 percent body weight, & ILAV C, 3.71 percent body weight) affected occupational task performance when compared to that in normal station wear. A prospective, within-subjects repeated measures design was employed, using a counterbalanced randomization in which each ILAV was worn for an entire day while officers completed a variety of occupationally relevant tasks. These tasks included a victim drag, car exit and 5-meter sprint, step down and marksmanship task. To compare the effects of the ILAVs on these tasks, a multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted, with post hoc pairwise comparisons using a Bonferroni adjustment. Results showed that performance in each task did not vary between any of the ILAV or normal station wear conditions. There was less variability in the marksmanship task with ILAV B, however. The results suggest that none of the ILAVs used in this study were heavy enough to significantly affect task performance in the assessed tasks when compared to wearing normal station wear.
Highlights
In an age of increasing threats, police forces are more commonly utilizing Individual Light ArmorVests (ILAVs) for protection of their officers from occupational risks such as stabbing, blunt trauma, and gunshot wounds [1,2]
An overview of the weight of each individual light armor vests (ILAVs) can be found in Table 2, with each ILAV being from different companies using their preferred materials and design
The differences in ILAV weights were mitigated to some degree when officers were fully equipped with daily work equipment (Table 2); they were all still significantly heavier than the loads involved in wearing normal station wear alone (p < 0.002 for all on Bonferroni post-hoc tests)
Summary
In an age of increasing threats, police forces are more commonly utilizing Individual Light ArmorVests (ILAVs) for protection of their officers from occupational risks such as stabbing, blunt trauma, and gunshot wounds [1,2]. The ILAVs used in police forces tend to be lighter (~2.7–3.8 kg) than military armor; they still contribute to an overall extra load on an officer [3]. The extra load of an ILAV is added to the equipment employed by officers, which may include items such as a communication system, weaponry, handcuffs and torches [1]. The weight of this load can range from 3 kg to 15 kg [3] and has been shown to decrease occupation-specific performance in police officers, for example, increasing the time required to complete a 5-meter sprint, vehicle exit task, ground mobility and grapple task [1]. Public Health 2018, 15, 893; doi:10.3390/ijerph15050893 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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