A 15-year partnership between UK coastal scientists and the international beach lifeguard community

Drowning is a leading cause of unintentional fatalities around the world, yet on beaches is often preventable through public education campaigns and intervention activities from lifeguards. In 2006, the UK beach lifeguarding community approached the Coastal Processes Research Group (CPRG) at University of Plymouth, UK, with a need to better understand the key hazards on UK beaches and how to foresee and manage the associated risks. In some cases there simply was not sufficient scientifically-robust understanding of certain hazards (for example rip currents) available for lifeguard managers to make objective, data-driven decisions on how to manage them. This paper documents the resulting 15-year body of work, and reflects upon the education, outreach, and other research impacts that have been created, and lessons learned along the way. By furthering fundamental coastal processes understanding of such things as beach classification and rip current dynamics, as well as applying science to challenges such as predicting beach life-risk and times of peak bathing hazard, the ongoing collaboration between lifeguards and academics continues to inform beach safety management in a number of countries around the world. Initiating research with clear aims and objectives that are driven by, and developed in conjunction with, the end-user, as opposed to starting with outcomes prescribed to the end-user by academics, has been an important factor in the success (or failure) of these scientific ventures. CPRG's research activities in the field of beach safety has been scientifically rewarding and have achieved significant impacts. We attribute this to: (1) sustained level of high-quality research; (2) continued effort spent on building long-term relationships with end-users; (3) co-creation of dissemination material and tools; (4) acceptance that it takes time and effort to achieve research impact; and (5) critically evaluating and reflecting on the research impacts. Ultimately, the ongoing collaboration has contributed to a ‘continuing trend of decline in accidental fatalities around our coastlines’, and such collaborations in other parts of the world continue to play a vital role in reducing coastal drowning globally

Measuring the proportion of and reasons for asthma-related school absence in England

Asthma affects 300 million people across all age-groups and ethnicities and is the most common chronic condition affecting children1, 2. In the UK, the health care costs associated with asthma are estimated at £1.1 billion, however this amount typically excludes some societal costs (e.g. absence from work to care for children)3. The total number of days missed from school in England in the 2017/18 academic year was 59.1 million of which 54.7% were due to illness4 although the reasons for those illness-related absences are unknown. Given the high proportion of children with asthma and the fact that school absences are associated with low levels of achievement6, the primary aim of this study was to measure the proportion of asthma-related absences in school children and describe the factors reported by parents that predispose their children to these school absences. The secondary aim was to explore parents’ and school staff views on extending an app currently used for reporting school absences to one that might also provide tailored interventions