FSU named co-recipient of $1.5 million grant to study cancer risk among women firefighters

The Florida State University Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship will conduct a first-of-its-kind study that explores the link between proper fit of personal protective equipment (PPE) and occupational cancer risk for women in the fire service.  

In partnership with the University of Arizona, FSU Carol Avery Professor Meredith McQuerry, lab director of the Wearable Advancements in Research and Performance (WARP) group, received a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to further examine the relationship between gear fit and occupational cancer. The findings will be applicable to approximately 1.1 million members of the United States Fire Service. 

“I am honored to be part of this award, partnering with colleagues at the Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, to study how gear fit directly impacts occupational cancer for the first time,” McQuerry said. “We hope this work will inform standard sizing improvements for increased firefighter health and safety.” 

“I am honored to be part of this award, partnering with colleagues at the Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, to study how gear fit directly impacts occupational cancer for the first time. We hope this work will inform standard sizing improvements for increased firefighter health and safety.” 

– Meredith McQuerry, FSU Carol Avery Professor

McQuerry and her research team will compare gear fit of female firefighters with cancer biomarkers that provide results from pre-to-post live fire training burns at four structural fire departments across the United States, including Florida, California, Arizona and Virginia. Occupational cancer is the leading cause of long-term line-of-duty deaths in the fire service. Last spring, FSU principal investigator and postdoctoral fellow Josephine Bolaji collaborated with Arizona to deploy a multi-measurement system to quantify gear fit during a pilot trial.  

FSU’s latest research is a hallmark of the FSU Health mission, an integrated academic health system that brings together hospitals, physicians, clinics, research, education and innovation to improve the health of the communities the university serves. McQuerry is a member of ICON-Health, an institute dedicated to combatting chronic disease through comprehensive, multidisciplinary research. 

As director of the ThermaNOLE Comfort Lab®, McQuerry has world-renowned expertise in clothing comfort physiology with industry-leading research that investigates ways to improve first-responder safety through functional equipment. Her latest grant explores multiple risk factors for toxic exposure and reproductive outcomes for the female firefighter population. 

McQuerry has received federally funded awards demonstrating the potentially hazardous relationship between poor gear fit and increased occupational exposure. She recently chaired a research team that concluded a five-year multi-state project titled “Protective Clothing for Wildland Firefighters,” providing recommendations to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) on improving methods for cleaning and safeguarding PPE for wildland firefighters. 

As head of the WARP Group, McQuerry leads a team of postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students at the ThermaNOLE Comfort Lab ®, the Textile Testing Laboratory and the 3D Body Scanning Lab. Over the last decade, WARP has received more than $5 million in funding for research that spans protective equipment design, clothing comfort physiology, medical textiles and material durability.