**Abstract**

Occupational stress is a pervasive problem that is relevant across the world. Stress, in combination with occupational hazards, may pose additive risks for health and wellbeing. This chapter discusses the influence of physical and psychosocial stressors on basal cortisol regulation as associated with higher-risk occupational duties among two subspecialties of police officers (frontline and special tactical unit officers). Results reveal significant differences in dysregulated cortisol awakening response associated with the higher risk duties among special tactical unit officers. In contrast, frontline officers with a lower objective occupational risk profiles report higher subjective stress levels. Dysregulated or maladaptive cortisol levels are associated with increased health risk. Thus, individuals working in high stress occupations with elevated cortisol profiles may be at increased risk of chronic health conditions. Results suggest that considering both objective physiological markers and subjective reports of stress are dually important aspects in designing interventions for police officers of differing subspecialties.

**Keywords:** stress, diurnal cortisol, occupational risk, HPA, fight-or-flight, police

### **1. Introduction**

Most of the world's population spends approximately a third of their adult life at work [1]. Interestingly, work also consistently remains a top cited source of adult stress (64% of 3602 surveyed United States adults) [2]. In the context of occupational health, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines occupational stress as the response when presented with work demands that do not match knowledge and abilities, thus, challenging the individual's ability to cope; research suggests the most stressful types of work are those that provide excessive demands and pressures, low perception of control, and provides little support from others [3]. Occupational stress can manifest in physical symptoms, especially cardiovascular ailments; stress is linked to seven of the top ten causes of death in the world, with heart disease being the leading cause for men and women, and chronic occupational stress increasing coronary heart disease risk by 40–50% [4–6].

With occupational stress cited as such a pervasive part of our lives, there is great interest to better understand the impact that stress, in combination with objective occupational hazards, may have on physical and mental health. Thus it is critical to better understand how different workplace factors contribute to or exacerbate

stress. As occupational duties and stress exposure varies across occupations, occupational stress sources (i.e., stressors) can be further separated into operational stressors (i.e., job content-inherent aspects of the occupation) and organizational stressors (i.e., job context-characteristics and behaviors of the organization and people of them) [7]. One route to understand how different levels of occupational stress can affect the body is by looking to varying levels of occupational risk exposure within a single occupation via its operational stressors.

Researchers have specialized in examining the effects of occupational responsibilities [7–9], comparing risk subtypes within a high-risk occupation [10]. In a previous study [10], the authors focused on identifying the objective physiological stress associated with risk-subtype among police officers in comparison to the general public. This prior literature revealed that police had significantly higher physiological stress responses (i.e., basal cortisol regulation) in comparison to the general population, with the effect even more pronounced as objective occupational hazards increased (i.e., frontline vs. tactical police).

The goal of this chapter is to discuss stress of varying occupational risk profiles and objective hazards' impact on physiological stress response, while considering participants' subjective reports of stress. Specifically, the authors present analyses to assess subjective measures of stress to further stratify and identify specific factors that may drive objective physiological stress (i.e., basal cortisol regulation) trends observed in a police sample. We hypothesized a positive association between increased risk associated with objective occupational hazards and self-reported stressors. Specifically, that dysregulation in HPA function would be higher among tactical unit officers and this would align with both increased occupational hazards (objective) and self-reported occupational stressors (subjective).
