TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Florida State University (FSU) is part of a new $1.5 million FEMA grant funding a first-of-its-kind study looking at cancer risk among women firefighters.
Inside the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at FSU, the ThermaNOLE Comfort Lab is tucked away. But the research underway there could have a big impact on firefighters across the country.
“This project gives us the first opportunity to evaluate how gear fit for firefighters impacts exposure to toxicants, in particulate exposure for cancer,” said Meredith McQuerry, a professor at the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship.
Thanks to a new FEMA grant, and in collaboration with the University of Arizona, McQuerry and her research team at FSU are examining how firefighting gear fits women and how that could relate to cancer biomarkers.
In a traditionally male-dominated occupation, McQuerry says this research gives them a chance to focus on a group that has often been overlooked.
“This is a project particularly to look at the ill fit of female firefighting PPE because we’ve known since 1993, unfortunately across multiple studies since for the last 30 years, that women have a four-time greater rate of self-reported fit issues, so 80% of women in the US fire service say their structural turnout gear does not fit.”
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The team will collect results from four structural fire departments across the country, in Florida, Arizona, California, and Virginia.
They’ll look at firefighters before and after live fire training and compare those results with how well their gear fits.
“We’re measuring cancer biomarkers before and then again after that live fire exposure, controlling for that type of live fire exposure at each department so then we’re able to correlate the cancer biomarker increase or decrease with the gear fit of each participant,” McQuerry said.
McQuerry says their previous work has already shown just how poorly some firefighting gear can fit women and the large gaps between the measurements of women firefighters and the gear currently on the market.
Now, they’re hoping this study can help lead to a change.
“If we get good results, we’re able to have this clear path to this is the problem; we figure this out. I think it’s a huge win, not just for women, but for everyone. If we can deal with and tackle this three-layered garment, every other occupation that requires PPE of a less complex layer can apply that principle to them,” said Josephine Bolagi, a postdoctoral fellow at the ThermaNOLE Lab.
Occupational cancer is the leading cause of long-term deaths in the fire service.
Professors said the final findings from this study should be collected by spring of 2027.
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