Two new conference themes have been added to the World Conference on Drowning Prevention 2011 program, bringing the total number of conference themes to ten. Organisers identified two additional areas; Partnership and Collaboration, and Activity and Occupational perspectives on drowning.

Partnerships and collaborations are strategies capable of amplifying the reach and impact of research, policy and practice. The partnership and collaboration stream aims to highlight a range of exceptional examples across all levels including: international, regional, country and community and across all sectors including business partnerships, organisational approaches, at an institutional level, governmental approaches and the strategy of sponsorship.

If you have examples of excellent partnerships and collaborations employed to reduce or prevent drowning, we encourage you to submit an abstract.

Activity and Occupational perspectives on drowning prevention is a stream that will focus on research, policy and practice that are targeted at a specific activity or occupation. Recreational and occupational activities can increase a person’s exposure to drowning.

Such activities include fishing, scuba diving, boating, sailing, surfing, swimming, snorkelling, using jet skis, and theme park attractions. There are also a wide range of occupational sectors including commercial fishing, water transportation services where drowning is a factor.

This stream may also include discussion on the range of activities and occupations where drowning occurs, information about exposure, common circumstances leading to drowning, prevention activities, strategies and the development of safer systems or attitudes.

With travel by water being so common throughout the world and large numbers of people relying on interacting with the water for their livelihoods, the activities and occupations stream will surely have a number of interesting and inspiring presentations.

The call for abstracts opened on March 15 and will close on July 31.  

The full list of conference themes are as follows:

• Drowning Research
• Child Drowning Intervention
• Emergency Response and Medical Issues
• Advances in Lifesaving
• Swimming and Water Safety
• Disasters and Climate Change
• Regional Perspectives
• Lifesaving Sport and Development
• Partnerships and Collaborations
• Activities and Occupations

Amy Peden, Royal Life Saving Society – Australia

The conference organisers welcome contributions to this news facility. Please email all contributions to jscarr@rlssa.org.au