Applying the Social Vulnerability Index as a Leading Indicator to Protect Fire-Based Emergency Medical Service Responders’ Health

Emily J. Haas, Alexa Furek, Megan Casey, Katherine N. Yoon and Susan M. Moore
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Emily J. Haas: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA
Alexa Furek: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA
Megan Casey: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA
Katherine N. Yoon: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA
Susan M. Moore: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: During emergencies, areas with higher social vulnerability experience an increased risk for negative health outcomes. However, research has not extrapolated this concept to understand how the workers who respond to these areas may be affected. Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) merged approximately 160,000 emergency response calls received from three fire departments during the COVID-19 pandemic with the CDC’s publicly available Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to examine the utility of SVI as a leading indicator of occupational health and safety risks. Multiple regressions, binomial logit models, and relative weights analyses were used to answer the research questions. Researchers found that higher social vulnerability on household composition, minority/language, and housing/transportation increase the risk of first responders’ exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Higher socioeconomic, household, and minority vulnerability were significantly associated with response calls that required emergency treatment and transport in comparison to fire-related or other calls that are also managed by fire departments. These results have implications for more strategic emergency response planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as improving Total Worker Health ® and future of work initiatives at the worker and workplace levels within the fire service industry.

Keywords: coronavirus; emergency management; risk management; social vulnerability index; firefighter; logit regression; occupational stress; relative weights; total worker health; emergency medical services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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