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Your Environment. Your Health.

Protecting Firefighter Health

Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)

smiling firefighters

Protecting Firefighter Health

June 15, 2023

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Interviewee: Jeff Burgess, M.D.

In this episode, we’ll hear from Jeff Burgess, M.D., who has been a leader in the field of firefighter health and safety research for more than 30 years. Burgess discusses the health risks of firefighting and shares best practices to reduce occupational exposures and improve firefighter health.

Protecting Firefighter Health

Firefighters face many risks on the job, including exposure to chemicals that may harm their health. Contaminants in smoke and firefighting foams, for example, may contribute to the higher rates of cancer observed in firefighters compared to the general U.S. population. A better understanding of the health hazards of firefighting can help inform strategies to reduce harmful exposures and protect workers’ health.

In this episode, we’ll hear from Jeff Burgess, M.D., who has been a leader in the field of firefighter health and safety research for more than 30 years. Burgess discusses the health risks of firefighting and shares best practices to reduce occupational exposures and improve firefighter health.

Interviewee:

Jeff Burgess, M.D.

Jeff Burgess, M.D., is a professor in the college of public health at the University of Arizona. His research interests include reducing toxic exposures and preventing injuries and illnesses among firefighters, other first responders, and miners. Burgess leads an arm of the Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study, a national research effort to integrate firefighter epidemiologic, biomarker, and exposure data to determine how exposures lead to cancer and identify mitigation strategies. Burgess was also one of 25 experts who helped inform the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s 2022 decision to classify occupational exposure as a firefighter as carcinogen.

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