The Airwave Tissue Bank is an epidemiological study of police officers and staff in Great Britain. It was established in 2003 to investigate possible long-term health effects associated with use of TETRA, the personal radio system used by the police service.

Participant recruitment was piloted from June 2004 via paper questionnaire and health screen. After two years, the pilot was deemed successful and, with some revisions to the protocol, the main phase of recruitment began in 2006. We toured the country, spending time with police forces keen to enroll their officers and staff. Recruitment ended in March 2015 forming a baseline of approximately 53,000.

In November 2015, we began a programme of follow-up health screens for participants whose previous screen was at least 5-years prior. This continued until the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020. During the following two pandemic years the cohort volunteered for two important components of the REACT Study, making valuable contributions to research into diagnostic methods. 

Although at its core, the Airwave Study remains an investigation into the risk of cancer for users of the Airwave radio, the cohort now supports broader research into common diseases affecting this well-defined occupational group.