Call for Papers: Special Issue in Human Factors - Lessons Learned From COVID-19 and Other Natural Disasters
Posted October 15, 2024
The world has experienced increased public health threats. They come in the forms of natural disasters due to climate change, such as more severe hurricane/tornado/typhoon activities, flooding, extended drought and excessive heat. Other than the climate, one of the most notable, impacting events in our collective experience was the COVID-19 pandemic. Various interventions were aimed at protecting individuals and containing the spread of the disease, including sheltering in place, remote work/learning, personal protective equipment, frequent disinfecting, etc. In addition to changes in human behavior, various systems were designed or redesigned to adapt to the dire situation and the new norms.
Despite these challenges, the pandemic pushed the boundaries of knowledge and led to rapid advances in medicine, effective measures of virus detection, prevention through vaccination, and pharmaceutical products that were invented and administered in an unprecedented speed. Due to the fast development in every aspect described in the span of just about three years of the pandemic, or other crisis emerging in recent 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 special issue invites submissions of original theoretical and empirical research related to public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of all domains of human factors and ergonomics. All submissions must be aligned with the mission and scope of the Human Factors journal.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Validation and evaluation of new protocols derived during the crisis, or the surge or sudden decrease of existing use. Examples include: remote/hybrid learning or work, patterns in transportation usage and consequences, telehealth, contactless business transactions
- Effective evaluation or impact on users of new design of personal protection equipment
- Impact of direct or indirect changes or trends in human physical activity, behavior, or safety
- Demonstration of impact, 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 crisis.
- Natural experiments that include the crisis as a factor and contain HF/E elements, lending new insight for future crisis preparedness
If you are unsure whether a topic fits the scope, feel free to consult with the guest editorial committee: jia-hua.lin@lni.wa.gov
Special Issue Editors:
- Jia-Hua Lin, PhD, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, Tumwater, WA, USA
- Farzan Sasangohar, PhD, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
- William Horrey, PhD, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Washington DC, USA
- Tarcisio A. Saurin, PhD, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
- Patrick Manu, PhD, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Submission Site
Submission deadline: January 31, 2025