What is The Carolina Blue Project?

The Carolina Blue Project is a UNC study focusing on work-related stress, eating behaviors, and cardiovascular disease risk factors in NC law enforcement officers.

Law enforcement is a high-stress profession. Exposure to high work-related stressors can contribute to psychological distress, such as burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and unhealthy eating.

Officers who suffer from psychological distress are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular diseases and its risk factors, like weight gain, obesity, hypertension, and heart attack. The Carolina Blue Project is investigating how work-related stress and eating behaviors affect the cardiovascular disease risk factors among North Carolina law enforcement officers.

In the United States, police officers have the highest cardiovascular disease mortality ratio of all occupations, as well as the worst cardiovascular health profile.

• 40.7% have the highest prevalence of obesity among all occupation categories.
• 21% have hypertension.
• 10% of all on-duty police fatalities are due to sudden cardiac death.

However, few studies focus on North Carolina law enforcement officers' cardiovascular health.

Through The Carolina Blue Project, we hope to:

1. understand the prevalence of work-related stress, eating behaviors, and cardiovascular disease risk factors among North Carolina law enforcement officers.
2. raise the awareness of cardiovascular disease risk factors and the importance of cardiovascular health among North Carolina law enforcement officers.
3. develop future intervention programs to cope with work-related stress, unhealthy eating, and improve cardiovascular health among North Carolina law enforcement officers.

Which departments are involved in The Carolina Blue Project?

The Carolina Blue Project is a collaboration among the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) School of Nursing, UNC Biobehavioral Laboratory, UNC Department of Psychiatry, and any local North Carolina Police or Sheriff Departments that are willing to participate in the project.

How will the participants' privacy be protected?

We do not collect any personally identifiable information such as name, birthdate, social security number, phone number, or name of work department.

Instead, we ask officers for their email address, so we can follow up on the online survey, and send the $100 e-gift card after completing all research activities.

Every officer will be assigned a unique ID in our dataset for data analysis. The project has been approved by the UNC Institutional Review Board (IRB # 22-2052).

How will the participants' survey and medical information be used?

The results of this project will not be presented at an individual or department level. Instead, the results will be presented at the state or county level in scientific conferences and peer-reviewed journals. Results will be shared in graphs and tables.