The Police Stress and Health Program

Updated 11.13.08

About the Police Stress and Health Program

The Police Stress and Health Program is a research, education and training program that works in partnership with the police community to provide information and resources aimed at preventing duty-related stress and improving the quality of life of law enforcement professionals. Major goals of the Police Stress and Health Program include:

Improving our understanding of the unique stressors faced by law enforcement professionals

Identifying both positive and negative ways that officers cope with duty-related stress

Developing effective tools and treatments to assist officers in the management of duty-related stress

Study Updates

We are pleased to announce that the Police Stress and Health Program (PSHP) has recently been awarded further funding by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to continue tracking the experiences of law enforcement officers over the next five years of police service. We are grateful to all of the busy officers who have participated thus far and firmly believe that the success of our program is due to the invaluable and generous cooperation of the 400 police officers who initially enrolled in the study. The study team and the NIH remain committed to helping police officers perform optimally and remain healthy throughout their career.

To successfully complete this project and advance the understanding of police stress and health, we hope that you will continue your support by providing your invaluable information every 6 months over the next five years. As always, all procedures are completely voluntary.

Our aim continues to be identification of resilience and vulnerability factors for critical incident stress and routine work stress. The long term goal of our research is to inform best practices in training and stress management in order to maximize the emotional and physical health and prevent occupational disability in police officers. Along with the six month surveys and annual interviews, we plan to repeat startle testing, cognitive testing, and the sleep assessment. New areas of research included in our study are:

Testing for genetic markers indicating resilience and vulnerability to stress

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) testing in collaboration with Columbia University to understand how activation of specific brain areas explains individual differences in the ability to make decisions under threat

For more information about our study findings, please visit our research page.

Headquartered at the University of California, San Francisco, the Police Stress and Health Program operates sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.

For more information about our study components, click here.
Please contact us with any questions or concerns.

The Police Stress and Health Program is an affiliate of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
and the Northern California Institute for Research and Education (NCIRE).