Background: Lifeguard Data Collection Survey

Back in 2017 at the World Conference on Drowning Prevention in Vancouver, a group of us lifeguard-researcher-nerd types were talking at the International Drowning Researcher’s Alliance (IDRA) meeting. IDRA is an awesome group of researchers from all over the world dedicated to collaboration in drowning prevention research. One thing that kept coming up in the conversation was how lifeguard data was quite different between organisations within and between countries. We started to think through how things could improve but realised we didn’t even really know the scope of the situation.  

After the conference, we started looking into the research and found only one article specifically addressing some of the challenges with lifeguard data collection. Upon further digging, we found ten scientific articles which specifically cited lifeguard data issues as limitations of the research. In an effort to help chart a path towards improvement, we decided to craft a survey on lifeguard data collection procedures and distribute it to a group of lifeguard supervisors and managers around the world. Our goal was to identify and characterise existing data collection procedures in order to identify key data gaps, inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement.

Will Koon and Rob Brander from UNSW led the survey in collaboration withAndrew Schmidt(USA),Ana Catarina Queiroga(Portugal),Justin Sempsrott(USA),David Szpilman(Brazil), andJonathon Webber(New Zealand).