The Prevalence and Health Impacts of Frequent Work Discrimination and Harassment among Women Firefighters in the US Fire Service

Intro. Both discrimination and harassment directly impact mental and physical health. Further, workplace discrimination degrades workplace culture and negatively impacts health behaviors, job-related outcomes, and family dynamics. Women represent a small proportion of the fire service and are often the targets of discrimination/harassment, yet little research documents the impact of such experiences. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between chronic work discrimination and/or harassment and women firefighters’ (FFs) physical and mental health, substance abuse, and job efficacy, stress, and satisfaction. Methods. Snowball sampling was used to solicit participation from women career FFs. Participants completed an online survey regarding physical and mental health, health behavior, job efficacy/stress/satisfaction, and family well-being. Logistic regression examined the impact of work discrimination-harassment severity on dichotomous variables. Results. 1,773 had complete data on their experiences with work-related discrimination and harassment. Women reported experiencing verbal (37.5%) and written (12.9%) harassment, hazing (16.9%), sexual advances (37.4%), and assaults (5.1%) in the fire service. FFs in the highest tertile of work discrimination-harassment severity reported over 40% more poor health days in the last 30 days (OR=1.42; 95%CI=1.33-1.51; p