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Call for Papers: Special Issue in Human Factors

Lessons learned from COVID-19 from the human factors and ergonomics perspectives

 

Jia-Hua Lin
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, Tumwater, WA, USA

Farzan Sasangohar
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

William Horrey
AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Washington DC, USA

Tarcisio A. Saurin
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Patrick Manu
University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, which led to unprecedented changes in the daily lives of people around the world. Various interventions aimed at protecting individuals and containing the spread of the disease such as sheltering in place, remote work/learning, personal protective equipment, and frequent disinfecting. In addition to changes in human behaviors, various systems were designed or redesigned to adapt to the dire situation and the new norms.  Despite the challenges, the pandemic pushed the knowledge boundaries and led to rapid advances in medicine, effective measures of virus detection, prevention through vaccination, and pharmaceutical products were invented and administered in an unprecedented speed. In May of 2023, WHO declared the end of the emergency. Due to the fast development in every aspect described in the span of just about three years, it is unlikely that all the devices, procedures, designs, and organizations emerging during this period were properly assessed from the human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) perspective.

This proposed special issue invites submissions of original theoretical and empirical works related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of all domains of human factors and ergonomics. All submissions must explicitly demonstrate knowledge that yield design principles; enhance training, selection, and communication; and ultimately improve human-system interfaces and sociotechnical systems that lead to safer and more effective outcomes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Validation and evaluation of new protocols derived during the pandemic, or the surge or sudden decrease of existing use. Examples including:
    • Remote/hybrid learning
    • Remote/hybrid work
    • Patterns in transportation usage and consequences
    • Telehealth
    • Contactless business transactions
  • Effective evaluation or impact on users of new design of personal protection equipment
  • Impacts of direct or indirect changes or trends in human physical activities, behaviors, and safety due to the pandemic
  • Demonstration of impacts, or consequences of changes in various work systems or industries
  • Effective occupational safety management
  • System resilience and emergency responses in various industries or organizations
  • Role of digital technologies, including Industry 4.0/5.0 during the pandemic
  • Natural experiments that include the pandemic as a factor and contain HF/E elements, lending new insight for future pandemic preparedness

If unsure whether a topic fits the scope, feel free to reach out and consult with one of the guest editorial committee members.

The deadline for submissions is November 30, 2024.