Societal Outreach Applications of Ergonomics Education Programs - Lecture Session

摘要

It may be argued that, throughout the history of the field, both the practical and the scientific research applications of ergonomics have had a comparable beneficial impact on the health, safety, and wellbeing of human society. From this perspective, a reasonable prediction is that using ergonomics education for societal outreach as well as more focused academic purposes will represent a potentially effective strategy for informing the public-at-large about the practical benefits and significance of ergonomic applications. The papers in this session support this prediction. They describe use of an ‘ergonomics good practices' web site, the application of service learning through outreach projects in a developing country, the educational efforts of a new ergonomics society in another developing country to publicize and promote the benefits of ergonomics throughout the country, and the importance of addressing both the practical applications as well as purely academic content in ergonomics education, from an author in yet a third developing country. Collectively, the overarching lesson from these reports is that ergonomics education programs, regardless of location or context, should make every effort to integrate academic content with societal outreach efforts.