Occupational Health Hazards Among Traffic Police in South Asian Countries: Protocol for a Scoping Review

BACKGROUND: Occupational health hazards and injuries are an alarming concern among traffic police. Occupational injuries affect the physical, social, and mental well-being of police personnel, which has various public health implications. The evaluation of occupational health and safety policies and regulations for the traffic police relies on their occupational exposure and health hazard statistics and assessments. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this scoping review is to systematically explore, analyze, and describe relevant findings from all studies conducted on occupational exposure and associated health hazards among traffic police in South Asia. METHODS: The scoping review will include studies that assessed occupational exposure prevalence, types, knowledge, predisposing factors, and prevention strategies. Databases like PubMed, Springer Link, EBSCOhost, the Cochrane library, and Google Scholar will be used to obtain both published and unpublished works in the English language. Relevant gray literature, including governmental and international organization reports, will be examined. After removing duplicates and screening titles and abstracts, the full-text analysis will begin. Arksey and O'Malley's methodology framework for scoping reviews will be followed. According to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews, the scoping review will be reported. Two qualified reviewers will independently conduct article screening and data extraction. The extracted data will then be tabulated and accompanied by an explanation to facilitate comprehension. We will extract relevant article results using NVivo (version 10; QSR International) and thematic content analysis. The included articles will be evaluated using the mixed methods appraisal tool (version 2018). RESULTS: The scoping review will provide insight into how occupational health hazards affect traffic police physically and psychologically in South Asia. The theoretical conceptualization of different aspects of the occupational health of traffic police will emphasize future studies in this region, which will inform policy makers to revise their occupational health and safety policies and principles. It will have implications for taking necessary preventive measures in the future to reduce occupational injuries and fatalities resulting from different types of occupational hazards. CONCLUSIONS: This scoping review will describe the overview of occupational hazards among South Asian traffic police and will provide insights for policy makers to implement changes and to adapt new strategies. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/42239