Petition to create a Public Safety Technical Group to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (USA)

RE: Petition to create a Public Safety Technical Group to the Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society (http://www.hfes.org/web/Default.aspx)

 

Dear Colleague:

 

In recent years, the number of researchers, scientists, designers and
practitioners that formally study human factors issues in, and design
solutions for, the public safety domain (a.k.a., "mission critical") has
steadily grown. Evidence for this is seen in the number of papers that
have been published* in journals, conferences and books.  More
importantly, system and product designers that develop solutions for the
mission critical domain - and industry at large - have recognized that
addressing the human factor is imperative and intrinsic to the design
process to ensure successful outcomes for firefighters and police
officers, particularly when life, limb and property are at stake.  In a
similar vein, there is tremendous interest in police and fire
departments, including [police & fire] academies, to develop training
programs and operational protocols that are informed by the scientific
understanding of the human factor to facilitate positive outcomes and
enhance efficiency.

 

(*Bibliography is provided in the body of this e-mail below my
signature.)

 

The time has come to create a forum for those who are interested in HF
issues pertaining to the public safety domain.  The best way to realize
this would be to create a new technical group at the Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society (HFES).  To realize this vision, I and two of my
colleagues (Mark Palmer, Director, Motorola and Russ Branaghan,
Assistant Professor, Arizona State University) are filing a petition to
the HFES (as required by the HFES's council of technical groups) to
create a new technical group (TG).  We have proposed the name "Public
Safety Technical Group" for this TG. To bring this to fruition, we need
the support of 150 individuals of which, at least, 50% should be members
of HFES. 

 

At this time, we solicit your support to create the Public Safety TG. If
you wish to support this endeavor, please send your name, affiliation
and e-mail address to [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>  . (Please do not reply to this
listserve.) Kindly forward this e-mail to other colleagues, listserves
and forums that might be interested in this endeavor.

 

Finally, we still need more names (HFES members & non-members) to meet
the requirements of this petition, which requires a grand total of at
least 150 names to pass. (The COTG will vote on this at the annual
meeting of the HFES.) Please free to forward this e-mail to others
(note: HFES membership is not a necessary criterion) who would be
interested in supporting this endeavor.  It is also possible that
researchers, designers and practitioners in allied areas (warfare, civil
and military aviation, simulation, etc.), may also be interested in the
Public Safety TG because issues such as naturalistic decision making,
human performance under life threatening conditions, psychosocial issues
pertaining to high reliability organizations, etc., typically cut across
these domains and, thus, may wish to support this endeavor. Hence,
kindly treat this invitation as expansive rather than reductive. 

   

Looking forward to receiving your support.

 

Thank You.

 

Sincerely,

Moin Rahman

Principal Scientist

Design Integration-Human Factors

Motorola, Inc.

Plantation, FL 33322

Ph: 954-723-5749

e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 

 

*BIBLIOGRAPHY (partial list of HF-related publications pertaining to
public safety.)

 

French, J., Miller, J., & Campbell, G. (2004). A model for estimating
thermal stress and recovery cycles for firefighters. Proceedings of the
48th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. pp.
2080-2083. Santa Monica, CA: HFES.

 

Klinger, D.A. & Brunson, R.K. (2009). Police officers' perceptual
distortion during lethal force situations: Informing the reasonableness
standard. Criminology, Vol 8(1). 117-139.

 

Lucy, M. & Rhona, Fl. (2007). Shooting decisions by police firearms
officers. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making. Vol.
1(4), 375-390.

 

Pica, D. & Sorenson, C. (2004). On mobile technology in context:
Exploring police work. Journal of Computing and Information Technology,
12(2). 287-295.

 

Rahman, M. (2007). High velocity human factors: Human factors of mission
critical domains in nonequilibrium. Proceedings of the 51st Annual
Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. pp. 273-277. Santa
Monica, CA: HFES.

 

Rahman, M. (2009). Understanding naturalistic decision making under life
threatening conditions. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference
on Naturalistic Decision Making, pp. 121-128. Swindon, U.K.: The British
Computer Society. 

 

Weick, K.E. (2001). Tool retention and fatalities in wildland fire
settings: Conceptualizing the naturalistic. In E. Salas & G.A. Klein
(Eds.), Linking expertise and naturalistic decision making. (pp.
321-336). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates


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