By Katherine Hobson Sleep disorders are common among police
officers, and are associated with job-performance, health and
safety problems. A study published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association covering 4,957 police officers in
the U.S. and Canada found that 40.4% screened positive for some
kind of sleep disorder, most commonly obstructive sleep apnea. A
smaller percentage of officers screened positive for insomnia
and shift work sleep disorder. (We’ve written before about the
hazards of shift work.) The study found that those officers who
reported symptoms of a sleep disorder were more likely than
those who didn’t to experience a litany of problems: physical
and mental illnesses such as diabetes and depression,
experiencing “uncontrolled anger” toward suspects, falling
asleep while driving and absenteeism. (The study can’t determine
whether the sleep disorders caused those problems or whether
some other underlying cause was driving the sleep and other
difficulties.) Charles Czeisler, chief of t