Understanding the Mental and Physical Health Effects of Law Enforcement Service

Course Description

This 3-hour continuing education program examines the occupational stressors of policing and corrections and their documented mental and physical health consequences across the span of a peace officer's career. Drawing on systematic reviews, longitudinal cohort studies, and POST's own job-analysis materials, the course connects population-level health findings to the POST psychological screening dimensions and to evidence-based clinical practice with officer-patients and their families. Participants will leave with a more precise empirical foundation for conducting pre-employment suitability evaluations and for assessing and treating peace officers in clinical settings.

Program Goals

Building upon the advanced clinical training and supervised experience completed in a doctoral program in psychology or a related licensed discipline, this program extends participants' competency into the specialized occupational context of law enforcement. Doctoral training provides foundational knowledge of psychopathology, psychological assessment, and evidence-based intervention, but does not typically address the specific stressor profile, cultural dynamics, or health trajectories associated with peace officer service. This program bridges that gap by supplying the empirical and applied knowledge necessary to conduct California POST pre-employment psychological screening evaluations with greater precision and to provide culturally informed clinical care to peace officers and their families.

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the four POST psychological screening dimensions most directly implicated by the occupational health and mental health research on peace officers
2. Describe the distinction between operational and organizational stressors in policing and corrections, and explain how each independently contributes to adverse mental and physical health outcomes
3. Differentiate between fear-based post-traumatic stress and moral injury in peace officer populations, including their distinct psychological mechanisms and implications for clinical treatment planning
4. Analyze the prevalence estimates for depression, PTSD, anxiety, hazardous alcohol use, and suicidal ideation among police officers, including the methodological limitations that affect interpretation of these figures
5. Apply knowledge of occupational stressors, help-seeking barriers, and cultural factors specific to peace officers when assessing and treating officer-patients and their families

Course Outline

• 1Section 1: Scope, Framing, and POST Regulatory Context (25 minutes)
• 2 - Purpose of the program and its relevance to both evaluators and treating clinicians
• 3 - The 2009 shift from psychological stability to suitability and why it makes long-term occupational outcomes relevant to screening
• 4 - Four POST dimensions most implicated by the health literature: Emotional Regulation/Stress Tolerance, Avoiding Substance Abuse, Decision-Making/Judgment, and Impulse Control/Attention to Safety
• 5 - Applicability to correctional officers as peace officers and scope of the evidence base
• 6Section 2: The Occupational Stressors of Law Enforcement (30 minutes)
• 7 - POST job-analysis documentation of operational demands and the intensity of the peace officer role
• 8 - Distinction between operational and organizational stressors and the counterintuitive finding that routine organizational strain can rival critical incidents in its association with distress
• 9 - Shift work as a distinct physiological stressor with downstream effects on sleep, metabolism, and cognitive performance
• 10 - The stress response: sympathetic-adrenal and HPA-axis activation, cortisol dysregulation, and the concept of allostatic load as a unifying mechanism
• 11Section 3: Mental Health Outcomes Across the Career (45 minutes)
• 12 - Prevalence and interpretation of depression, PTSD, anxiety, and suicidal ideation using the Syed et al. 2020 meta-analysis and Carleton et al. 2018 national survey, with attention to methodological limitations and appropriate confidence intervals
• 13 - Post-traumatic stress: cumulative versus single-incident trauma, dose-response relationships, and evidence-based risk and protective factors including avoidant coping, peer support, and positive psychological resources
• 14 - Moral injury as a mechanistically distinct construct from fear-based PTSD, its prevalence in police populations, and clinical implications for assessment and treatment focus
• 15 - Hazardous alcohol use, burnout, help-seeking barriers, and the role of stigma and police culture in delaying care
• 16Section 4: Physical Health Outcomes and Biological Mechanisms (40 minutes)
• 17 - Cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome in police cohorts, with emphasis on the BCOPS study findings and the physiological pathways linking chronic occupational stress to cardiometabolic risk
• 18 - Sleep disorders: prevalence, occupational drivers including shift work and hypervigilance, and bidirectional relationships with mental health outcomes
• 19 - Emerging evidence on accelerated biological aging and possible links to cumulative physiological stress exposure
• 20 - Interaction effects among physical health outcomes and their relevance to the assessment of long-term stress tolerance
• 21Section 5: Correctional Officers as a Distinct Clinical Population (20 minutes)
• 22 - Occupational stressor profile in the custody environment: chronic threat, violence exposure, understaffing, and mandatory overtime
• 23 - Mental health prevalence data specific to corrections personnel and comparison with patrol-based police samples
• 24 - Shared organizational stressor structure across policing and corrections and where the evidence bases diverge
• 25 - Clinical and evaluative implications of working with correctional officers within the POST screening framework
• 26Section 6: Clinical and Evaluative Applications (40 minutes)
• 27 - Using the health and stressor literature to inform POST pre-employment psychological evaluations, particularly assessment of Dimension 7 stress tolerance
• 28 - Assessment considerations for treating clinicians: distinguishing cumulative organizational stress, post-traumatic presentations, moral injury, and comorbid substance use in officer-patients
• 29 - Reducing barriers to care: confidentiality, cultural competence with law enforcement populations, and non-pathologizing treatment frameworks
• 30 - Resilience, coping flexibility, peer support, and organizational interventions as protective factors addressed in clinical and departmental contexts

About the Instructor

Professional Degree & Discipline:

Psy.D.

Current Position & Expertise in Program Content:

Dr. Troy Ewing is a licensed clinical psychologist and CEO of Ewing Diagnostic & Psychological Services, Inc., a multi-site practice providing psychological and forensic assessment services across California and beyond. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Ewing specializes in pre-employment psychological evaluations, forensic assessments, and disability-related evaluations for local, state, and federal agencies. He has extensive experience working with law enforcement and government organizations, including managing large-scale psychological screening programs for correctional and public safety personnel. His expertise includes the administration and interpretation of a wide range of psychological and cognitive assessment instruments, as well as comprehensive report writing for diagnostic, eligibility, and risk-assessment purposes. n addition to his clinical and forensic work, Dr. Ewing is the founder of Mindset Continuing Education, an APA-approved provider, where he develops and delivers continuing education programs for mental health professionals. His career also includes significant experience in correctional mental health, university counseling, and crisis intervention, where he has worked with diverse populations across clinical settings. Dr. Ewing earned his Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology and is licensed in multiple states.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

No commercial support or conflicts of interest to disclose.

Refund & Cancellation Policy

Full refund available within 7 days of purchase if course has not been started. No refund after course content has been accessed.