A Longitudinal Study of Police Prestige, Job Satisfaction, Resilience and Stress through the Officer Safety and Wellness Platform (OSAW-B)

This proposal seeks to build upon an on-going NIJ-funded longitudinal survey of police officer stress and resilience by expanding its focus to include a robust study of how occupational prestige and job satisfaction may mitigate or exacerbate occupational stress for law enforcement and correctional officers. The applicant’s current survey of 1,000 law enforcement agencies and 1,200 law enforcement officers seeks to understand how agency policies and programs aimed at mitigating stress interact with the officer’s own work experiences, exposure to trauma, and resiliency.

The current proposal will add two additional waves of surveys to be administered to 960 current participants of the first phase with the inclusion of 400 correctional deputies from participating sheriff offices to participate in the study for a total sample size of 1,360. The research team will employ a multi-dimensional construct of occupational prestige that measures both the officers’ own prestige (including satisfaction with job-related autonomy and authority) and also their perception of public opinion of law enforcement and correctional deputies.

The research team will also study the actual psychological influence of job satisfaction and occupational prestige on stress measured by heart-rate variability (HRV) tests using a subsample of 150 responding law enforcement officers. Multivariate regression analyses and latent class modeling will be used to understand how occupational prestige and job satisfaction interact with other officer characteristics and agency policies to influence occupational stress.

"Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law," and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR 200.210(a)(14).

ca/ncf