Research summary
Human Factors in Search and Rescue
This chapter in the second edition of Mountain Medicine and Technical Rescue applies established human-factors concepts to SAR and introduces non-technical skills affecting team performance. Its central proposition is that human factors must be embedded into normal operational activity.
By Kris Manning 1 min read
- Responder welfare
- Leadership
- Lowland & rural
- Urban & built-up
- Woodland & forest
- Water, rivers & coast
- Moorland & upland
- Transport networks
Author: James Thacker
Published online: 6 August 2026
Status: Newly published/newly surfaced
Original: Oxford Academic chapter
Evidence: Practice insight — expert synthesis rather than primary research.
Operational significance: It provides a useful organising framework for:
Situational awareness.
Decision-making under pressure.
Leadership and followership.
Communication and coordination.
Cognitive workload and fatigue.
Recognising when apparently individual mistakes arise from system design.
UK lowland transferability: Transferable with adaptation. The mountain-rescue setting differs, but the command, team and workload issues are directly relevant.
Limitations: This is a broad expert chapter, not a systematic review or evaluated intervention. The accessible abstract does not disclose a formal evidence-selection method. It should not be used to claim that a particular human-factors training intervention improves SAR outcomes.
Training sections: Command; briefing and confirmation; Search Operations; handover; decision logging; operational periods; organisational learning.
Training decision — Monitor: Obtain and review the full chapter before changing manual content. It may provide a useful conceptual structure for the manual’s treatment of cognitive overload and multi-person Search Management.