Understanding the health and wellbeing of female police officers and staff

This PhD provides the opportunity for the successful candidate to explore women's health within the Police force in Scotland. They will draw on secondary data from the Airwave Health Monitoring Study and undertake interviews to explore what factors impact women's health in the context of policing to develop better ways of understanding health-related experiences, their impact on female police careers across the life course and the possibility for transformative practices.

A number of studies have investigated the stressors associated with police work. However, very few prospective studies exist analysing the health and wellbeing of this workforce and even fewer focus on women officers and staff and their specific health issues. Previous research has shown that women police officers suffer the same hazards and stressors as their male counterparts but also experience additional stressors associated with female health issues and their minority status within policing.

Female officers also experience unique stressors including concerns over their ability and skill to perform their duties compared to male officers, sexual harassment, discrimination and have reported lack of support within their organisations.