Cardiorespiratory fitness and unintentional nonfatal injury among the United States Air Force active duty

Statement of the problem. Unintentional nonfatal injuries were the third leading cause of hospitalizations in the United States Air Force in 1992. The Air Force places great emphasis on the need for its personnel to maintain physical fitness as a key to supporting the demanding requirements of its worldwide missions. Despite current surveillance techniques, little extant literature explicates the degree to which cardiorespiratory fitness contributes to nonfatal unintentional injuries within the Air Force active duty (ADAF) population. Injury outcomes were examined in relation to cardiorespiratory fitness levels among the ADAF.;Methods. A case-control study design was used to explore the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and injuries among injured and non-injured USAF personnel in 1999 and 2000 (n = 72,730). Personnel who were injured in 2000 comprised the cases (n = 39,688); they must have completed a cycle ergometry fitness test in 2000 prior to the date of the injury. Controls (n = 33,042) were uninjured ADAF airmen who had been on active duty for at least one year, had a physical examination, and a cycle ergometry fitness assessment in 1999. Both multiple logistic regression and polychotomous logistic regression models were fitted to the data to examine the associations between cardiorespiratory fitness and injuries.;Results. Results from logistic regression modeling statistical analyses revealed a strong positive association between cardiorespiratory fitness and injuries: adjusted for other factors, the odds of injury for airmen who passed the fitness assessment was 1.62 (95% CI; 1.55, 1.68). Increase in body mass index (BMI) was associated with increased odds for injury (OR: 1.20; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.24). The findings provided negligible support for the relationship of tobacco use and injuries.;Conclusion. These results should provide a basis for directing future research efforts at understanding the relationship of cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity with unintentional nonfatal injuries among the military. The study's findings have important implications for the military medical and safety communities in coordinating and enforcing injury surveillance and prevention policies.