ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
This article is part of the Research TopicTrends in Occupational Health Epidemiology: The Role of Diet, Sleep and Shift Work in Chronic DiseaseView all 17 articles
Cardiovascular Risk Factors Across Job Roles and Work Shifts in a Brazilian Military Police Cohort: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
Daniel Franceschini Palmieri1,2,3,4,5,6*
Leonardo Borges Ferreira3,4*
Iúri Leão de Almeida2Vinicius C. Fiusa1,5,6Fiorella Jamilé Bazán Gonzales6João Pedro de Oliveira Bicalho Santos6
Ana Nogueira5,6
Luiz Sérgio Fernandes de Carvalho1,5,6
Alexandre Anderson De Sousa Munhoz Soares1,5,6- 1Medical Sciences Postgraduate Program, Universidade de Brasilia (UnB), Brasilia, Brazil
- 2Department of Health Assistance, Federal District Military Police, Brasilia, Brazil
- 3Higher Institute of Police Sciences - Federal District Military Police, Brasilia, Brazil
- 4Faculty of Social, Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Brasília, Brasilia, Brazil
- 5Data Lab for Quality of Care and Outcomes Research (LaDaQCOR), Universidade Catolica de Brasilia (UCB), Brasilia, Brazil
- 6Aramari Apo Institute for Advanced Health Education and Research, Brasilia, Brazil
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Background: Police officers are recognized as a high-risk group for cardiovascular disease (CVD), but it remains unclear how specific occupational factors, such as job roles and demanding shift schedules, modulate this risk. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors in a cohort of Brazilian military police officers and to investigate their associations with job type and work schedule. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis involving 436 male military police officers in Brazil was performed. Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and overall cardiovascular health scores were determined based on six key metrics: elevated blood pressure, dyslipidemia, dysglycemia, obesity, smoking status, and physical activity levels. Health profiles and risk factor prevalence were compared across administrative versus operational roles and different work shifts using Pearson's chi-squared tests for categorical data and non-parametric tests for non-normally distributed continuous data. Results: The population (median age 46.0 years) exhibited a high burden of risk factors, with over 80% being overweight or obese and 95% presenting with elevated blood pressure or hypertension. Consequently, nearly 90% of the officers were classified as having moderate or high cardiovascular risk, while only 3% met ideal health metrics. This high-risk profile was uniformly distributed across the force, with no statistically significant differences observed between job types or work schedules. Conclusion: This cohort of military police officers exhibits a severe and systemic burden of cardiovascular risk factors, pervasive throughout the force regardless of specific job roles or shift schedules. Given this widespread risk profile, the findings strongly recommend systemic, force-wide institutional health promotion initiatives, rather than programs targeted only at specific diseases, roles, or shifts.
Keywords: cardiovascular risk factors, police officers, Occupational Health, shift work, lawenforcement, metabolic syndrome, Hypertension, Obesity
Received: 30 Sep 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Palmieri, Ferreira, de Almeida, Fiusa, Bazán Gonzales, de Oliveira Bicalho Santos, Nogueira, Carvalho and Anderson De Sousa Munhoz Soares. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Daniel Franceschini Palmieri, dfpalmieri@gmail.com
Leonardo Borges Ferreira, tutant09@yahoo.com.br
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