International Conference on Stairway Usability and Safety

This conference will bring together experts and other interested persons from around the world to accomplish two objectives:

1. Identify what is currently known about stairway usability and safety that can be incorporated with confidence now in guidance materials (for professionals as well as consumers) and building codes plus widely used standards addressed in 12 expert panels and open discussion among all attendees on day one, June 9.
2. Identify what remains to be learned about stairway usability plus safety and how can we accomplish this, the focus of a few panels, a few oral presentations and open discussion among all attendees on day two, June 10.

Most program participants are invited for the special knowledge, for example in ergonomics (human factors), they will bring to particular panels.  Several program participants are presenting posters (for which the abstract submission process is now closed).  Selected posters will also be featured in one session of oral presentations.  Generally, the conference will bring together the largest group of authorities on stairway usability and safety assembled since the first international meeting in 1985.

Day one panels (to establish the state of the art in key topics in usability and safety): a) Injury epidemiology; b) Economics, including injury cost; c) Misstep and fall mechanisms; d) Perception and cognition; e) Nominal step geometry; f) Consistency of dimensions; g) Slip resistance; h) Handrails and guards; i) Persons with disabilities and older users (including where not to have stairs); j) Crowd use of stairs, plus transportation and occupational settings; k) Codes and standards; and l) Law (especially litigation), insurance and advocacy.

Early registration by April 1, 2011: CA$225; after this date registration is CA$300, however conference registrations might be limited to facilitate participation by all present.  (Note, as of January 2011, the CA$ was at, or near, parity with the U.S.$.)