Floating fit
Human factors thinking is helping to improve water safety and reduce the risk of people drowning. The Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) launched the Float to Live campaign, which aims to improve people’s chance of survival if they get into trouble in the water.
Panicking or trying to fight strong currents can put people in danger, so the advice urges people to stay calm, control their breathing and float. The evidence for this approach has been strengthened with research shared at the 2025 World Conference on Drowning Prevention.
PhD researcher and CIEHF member Thomas Wild presented the research at the event in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Writing in the latest issue the CIEHF’s members’ magazine, The Ergonomist, he said: “From an ergonomics and human factors perspective, Float to Live applies a set of well-designed instructions to support safe task performance in environmentally challenging situations.
“Because the risk of drowning is universal and can affect anyone, anywhere, at any time, it’s essential that the guidance is robust to inter-individual variability and effective across all populations and scenarios.
“Float to Live can be considered a human-system intervention: simple instructions designed for use in high-risk aquatic scenarios.”
He added: “By encouraging people to practice floating in supervised settings, the campaign enables individuals to attune to their own capabilities, understand their personal performance envelope and identify the strategies they need to apply in real-world scenarios.”
