Seeking Firefighters for Focus Group on New Firefighter Technology

Participants sought for focus groups on investigating challenges to firefighter safety, productivity, access, inclusion, and longevity and potential assistive technology

We are seeking participants for a focus group conducted by Clarkson University on investigating the challenges that career and volunteer firefighters face to safety, productivity, access, inclusion, and longevity and potential assistive technology. You have been identified as a potential participant due to your role as a career or volunteer firefighter, a fire chief, or a member of an organization involved in inclusion of underrepresented groups in firefighting. If you agree to be a part of this focus group, you will be asked to participate in filling out a questionnaire via a Google Form or via a hard copy, and participate in a virtual focus group meeting that will take no more than 2 hours.

If you are interested in participating, please fill out the following brief online form to be contacted when a focus group is being organized: https://forms.gle/uiDQwRAfuBkMMi3F8 The information collected will only be used for our scheduling purposes, it will not be shared.

There are no perceived risks of participating in this focus group, other than that which may be encountered in daily life. There is no risk of embarrassment or harm as participants’ identities will remain confidential. Identifiable data of any form including but not limited to name, social security number, driver’s license number, and state ID number will not be collected in this study.

The survey will help us garner information on the challenges that firefighters face in firefighting work, and will enable us to design novel exoskeleton suits that are personalized to individual firefighters. Your responses will be extremely valuable to help us ensure that our exoskeleton suits improve safety and reduce barriers to access and inclusion in firefighting.

Participants will receive a monetary compensation in the amount of $25.00 in the form of an Amazon gift card for participating in the study.

To reach us for the study, please call or email Michael Bazzocchi (mbazzocc@clarkson.edu, 315-268-7612). If you wish to opt-out of follow-up emails, please respond with a note stating that you do not wish to receive future emails about participating in the study. The Clarkson IRB approval number for this study is 22-06 E and the contact information for the Clarkson IRB office is irb@clarkson.edu via email, and (315) 268-3764 via phone.

Also, click here if you are interested to find out more about firefighter motion capture studies that are taking place in Potsdam, NY.