Joel Dunstan

Associate student
About
Joel Dunstan

Joel Dunstan’s project involves an injury analysis to identify a need for an occupational fitness evaluation process. To reduce injury and illness in firefighters, AFAC provided health and fitness recommendations for its associated fire service organisations in 2002. The recommendations offer a framework with which fire and emergency service organisations can monitor and assess the health and physical fitness of career and volunteer firefighters and include regular Physical Performance Assessments.

Consistent with these recommendations, the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (SAMFS) is committed to creating an evidence-based in-service fitness evaluation for use by its employees. Joel’s research aims to develop the fitness evaluation. This will involve numerous steps, including a retrospective cohort study of injury reports recorded by the SAMFS from
2011 to 2018, determination of critical tasks specific to SAMFS firefighters, the creation of a preliminary fitness evaluation, and establishing the physical and physiological demands associated with the fitness evaluation battery.

Joel is currently a Fitness Coordinator and postgraduate researcher at the SAMFS.

Student project

Development of an occupational fitness evaluation – the identification and quantification of criterion tasks performed by South Australian professional urban firefighters
The project will involve an injury analysis to identify a need for an occupational fitness evaluation process. In addition to the use of a 2-stage modified Delphi process to establish a list of validated critical occupational tasks unique to metropolitan firefighters in South Australia. Once identified these tasks may be used in further research to develop an occupational fitness evaluation incorporating the critical tasks.
Supervisory panel:
gcarrickranson, knorton, bstenner

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