Innovations in Education
Protecting the protectors
Marquette and the Milwaukee Police Department collaborate to study cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Sandy Ramey was working in a coronary care unit and an emergency department before beginning work on her dissertation. “We were taking care of so many people with cardiovascular disease,” she says. “I wanted my research focus to be on preventing it.”
In 2003, Ramey surveyed more than 2,800 male law enforcement officers in nine Midwest states, the largest study of its kind. She found that although the actual prevalence of cardiovascular disease was less among law enforcement officers, certain risk factors were more prevalent. Her work drew national recognition.
Ramey, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing, came to Marquette to continue her research — this time studying the Milwaukee Police Department. “MPD has about 2,000 officers, a nice mix of ethnicities and gender,” she says. “It’s an opportunity to look at other variables that might affect the prevalence of not only disease but also risk.”
Those variables include long and unpredictable work hours, limited access to healthy food while on the job and top-down management structure.
“If we expect LEOs to serve and protect, a safe and healthy work environment must be provided for them,” says Ramey. “What I hope to do is educate the MPD about how money that’s paid out for health care claims and sick days might be redistributed toward prevention efforts before officers develop disease and increased risk factors. In the long run, the MPD will save money — and the officers will be healthier.”
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