Abstract
Firefighter wellness has become a concern across the country, in large part because a combination of poor fitness levels, excess weight, and a high-intensity work environment contributes to chronic illness as well as line-of-duty deaths. Workplace wellness programs are effective in career fire service organizations, but nationwide implementation rates are low. This exploratory qualitative study examined the barriers to implementation in small to midsized/large career fire service organizations in the United States to develop a set of best practice recommendations for organizations to use in overcoming those barriers. Using a semistructured interview format, 18 fire service leaders from eight different organizations across the United States were interviewed. Results revealed themes involving barriers in the categories of buy-in, financial matters, leadership support, and labor management, suggesting the need for best practices in program planning, program choice, buy-in, finance, leadership, and labor management. Understanding the barriers of wellness program implementation in fire stations could empower fire department leadership to overcome these impediments and implement or maintain an effective wellness program. Future research should focus on analysis of implementation barriers in larger departments, studying firefighters’ perceptions of barriers to implementation, or examining the use of specific implementation tactics in a single department.|Keywords: Wellness, fitness, barriers, implementation, firefighter, leadership