The Annals of Emergency Dispatch and Response EDR journal is now on its feet and moving forward! Tons of thanks to the exemplary editorial leadership, peer-reviewers, and researchers for their tremendous input in establishing the journal. As we all (now) appreciate, establishing a peer-reviewed scientific journal of this nature and magnitude is no trivial task—I salute you all!
It is with profound pleasure, humility and honor that I welcome you, the reader, to this inaugural issue of the Annals of Emergency Dispatch and Response (AEDR) – an official international peer-reviewed research journal published by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED)®.
2022 is beginning to shape up as a year of opportunity for us in the public safety and public health professions. As COVID-19 transforms from a pandemic to an endemic disease, emergency services should get a much-needed moment to reset and recharge. Indeed, we can use this well-deserved breather to focus on areas needing improvement in our field. One such area is how we manage responses to 911 medical calls for help. For many years, researchers and analysts have documented the need to reduce lights and siren response to medical calls for emergency assistance, warning of an overreliance on these ‘hot’ re
This issue of AEDR contains two very intriguing studies that, on the surface, seem completely unconnected. Yet many important issues in emergency dispatch are interdependent when one chooses to look a little closer. One study, conducted with the participation of focus groups representing some of Utah’s diverse communities, tells us how members of those communities make their decisions to call 911, why they may not call even when true emergencies present to them, and what factors most influence their decision-making to call or not to call, including a finding that we may not always be delivering the righ
What’s next for the First, First Responder? Since that term was first coined decades ago by Dr. Jeff Clawson in the nascent years of emergency medical dispatch development, much has changed. One of the biggest changes is the expanded role of the emergency telecommunicator in general—not simply the role of the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD), who was the subject of the earliest efforts to professionalize emergency telecommunicators with formal training and continuing education...
Since our last issue was released in early January 2021, we have moved into a new stage of the COVID-19 pandemic—one of great promise, but also new dangers. It has been said by numerous epidemiological experts that we are now in a race to vaccinate enough of the population to stem the disease spread, before new and more potent virus variants threaten to ravage the world. Weathering more than a year of this pandemic makes it truly remarkable that so many dispatch agencies continue to perform at...
As we begin a new year and close the books on 2020, uncertainty, disruption, and stressful conditions continue all around us. Public safety and public health services have been pushed to their extremes throughout much of the last year. The fallout from this extended effort, with all its accompanying tension and strain, will surely be studied for years to come. Yet even before this current crisis existed, emergency telecommunicators faced many challenges. In this issue, two groups of...
So far, it's been a year like no other—and that has been especially true for emergency dispatch agencies and the responders for which they dispatch. While the COVID-19 outbreak is far from over, it appears that emergency services and public safety agencies have adjusted to our new normal quite effectively—albeit still with much uncertainty about the future. In coming issues, we expect to publish more on the pandemic as new research is completed and more cases of interest become available. However, for now, we are temporarily setting...
As I write this from my workplace office—realizing I'm one of only a few people in our organization who's not working from home this week—I feel it's important to recognize that most emergency dispatchers don't get to choose the work-from-home option. If that's you, then you know the drill; you must brave going out of the house, working side-by-side with your co-workers, practicing social distancing the best you can, wearing your mask whenever possible, disinfecting your workspace frequently, and enduring all the other risks...
When I was eight or nine years old, my dad gave me a copy of the book Anguished English, by Richard Lederer. The book was a compilation of puns, jokes, and double meanings, mostly accidental, that Lederer spotted in the world around him. Often these came from headlines, news articles, or ads. A lot of the jokes depended on one word that could mean two different things-or different words with meanings that were similar, but not quite the same. The book was incredibly funny to me as a child, but the confusion caused by the double meanings...