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National Firefighter Registry (NFR) for Cancer Quarterly Newsletter (Spring 2024)
Spring 2024
Welcome from the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer
Greetings! The NFR for Cancer continues to grow in more ways than one. As of April 2024, we have more than 12,000 firefighters who have enrolled. While we work with our fire service partners to continue to expand firefighter participation in the NFR, we are also growing the NFR team.
Read below to learn about two of our newest NFR team members. We will be introducing more new team members in the coming months.
We are excited to announce a new initiative to recognize fire departments who achieve high participation rates in the NFR among their active firefighters: Gold Helmet Departments. Many fire departments and local union leaders are advocating for participation, and this is a way of recognizing their efforts. Learn more about this new initiative below.
Please help us spread the word about Gold Helmet Departments, and the overall importance of the NFR for Cancer. The more firefighters we enroll, the more we can learn about the cancer risk in the fire service and specific work factors related to that cancer risk.
Kind regards,
Kenny Fent, PhD, CIH
CDR, U.S. Public Health Service
Research Industrial Hygienist/Team Lead
National Firefighter Registry Program
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The NFR is recognizing any U.S. fire department that enrolls at least 50% or more than 300 firefighters in the NFR as a Gold Helmet Department. Honored departments will receive a printable certificate, a Gold Helmet Department website badge, and social media posts and graphics for use on their department’s social channels.
Special thanks and recognition to the first three Gold Helmet Departments!
- Loveland-Symmes Fire Department, Ohio
- Hanover Park Fire Department, Illinois
- Independence Fire District, Kentucky
We’re proud to announce a new NFR YouTube playlist featuring our videos. The playlist makes it easy to access all of our videos in one place. These short videos provide information about the NFR, and why all U.S. firefighters, active or retired, no matter their length of service, should enroll.
The playlist includes many compelling videos showcasing testimonials from prominent members of the fire service such as Billy Goldfeder, Rick Swan, Regina Wilson, and many more. Video topics include how the NFR works and how we protect our participants’ personal data.
We’ll be adding more videos to our playlist in the future, so please stay tuned!
CDR Kevin L. Dunn, MS, CIH, REHS/RS, DAAS
Commander Dunn is an Environmental Health Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and a Senior Industrial Hygienist with CDC/NIOSH in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is joining the NFR from another part of NIOSH, where he acted as the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Field Studies Team Leader and the Exposure Assessment Critical Area Coordinator for the NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center since 2014.
CDR Dunn received his MS in Environmental Health and Industrial Hygiene from the University of Cincinnati and carries both the CIH and REHS/RS certifications. He has participated in 21 emergency response deployments for CDC and the USPHS and was the 2022 USPHS representative to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Service Chiefs Fellowship. CDR Dunn will be serving as a team lead on the NFR.
LCDR Catherine C Beaucham, PhD, MPH, CIH, RS/REHS, DAAS
Dr. Catherine Beaucham is a Lieutenant Commander in the USPHS. She completed her undergraduate degree in Industrial Hygiene from Ohio University in 2003, her MPH at Ohio State University in 2008, and her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Cincinnati in 2022. She is a Certified Industrial Hygienist and a Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian. She has worked for NIOSH since 2008 and is fluent in Spanish. Her primary research interests include wildland firefighters, flame retardants, and disaster epidemiology. LCDR Beaucham will be serving as a research industrial hygienist/epidemiologist on the NFR with CDC/NIOSH in Cincinnati, Ohio.
February
Kenny Fent attended the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE) Conference in Orlando, Florida and gave a general session presentation about the NFR. The NFR Program also had an exhibit booth. CPSE oversees the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). Fire departments can obtain some points towards CFAI accreditation by encouraging firefighter participation in the NFR.
March
Andrea Wilkinson and Kevin Dunn attended the Wildland Firefighter Leadership Conference at CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. Several representatives from wildland firefighting agencies attended the conference. Andrea presented a poster on the NFR.
Catherine Beacham presented on recent wildfire Health Hazard Evaluations including the Carr fire and Maui wildfire during the National Response Team’s bi-annual worker safety and health technical conference.
Alex Mayer attended the 2024 F.I.E.R.O. PPE Symposium in Greenville, South Carolina. He presented on several firefighter health and safety initiatives, including the NFR, and staffed a booth.
Alex also gave a presentation about the NFR to Provident Insurance Solutions, an insurance provider for volunteer fire departments. Alex led a webinar presentation, including a Q&A session, walking volunteer firefighters through the enrollment process.
April
The NFR launched during the Fire Department Instructors’ Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana last year. This year, Kenny Fent made another announcement about the NFR during the opening ceremony on April 18 in front of thousands of firefighters. He was joined on stage by representatives from 15 fire service organizations to show broad support for the NFR, and along with others, presented a powerful story about cancer and the importance of cancer screening. The NFR also had an exhibit booth and worked closely with the Firefighter Cancer Support Network to support their efforts around skin cancer screening and Five Alarm 5K Run to Remember at the conference.
Kenny Fent asks the audience at FDIC to raise their hands if they know a firefighter who has/had cancer.
Other events
The NFR program also staffed booths or tables at the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Wildland Urban Interface Conference in March and the International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI) Conference in April.
The NFR Program will continue our broad efforts to maximize participation. We plan to reach out directly to fire departments in the coming months to assist with recruiting and enrolling of their firefighters. We will also continue to present and set up exhibit booths at professional conferences, such as Fire Rescue International in Dallas in August.
The NFR is live!
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