Abstract. The majority of drowning deaths on Australian beaches occur significant distances away from lifeguard services. This study uses results of 459 surveys of beachgoers at five beaches unpatrolled by lifeguards in New South Wales, Australia, to improve understanding of who visits these beaches and why, and to identify risk factors associated with their beach safety knowledge and behaviour. Many unpatrolled beach users were infrequent beachgoers (64.9 %) with poor rip current hazard identification skills, who did not observe safety signage that was present, and yet intended to enter the water to swim (85.6 %) despite being aware that no lifeguards were present. The survey found that the main reasons why beachgoers visited unpatrolled beaches were because they were conveniently close to their holiday accommodation, or they represented a quieter location away from crowds. Future beach safety interventions in Australia need to extend beyond the standard “swim between the flags” message in recognition that many Australian beaches will remain unpatrolled, yet still frequented, for the foreseeable future. Future beach safety interventions for unpatrolled beaches should be tailored towards the varied demographic groups of beach users.

Drowning is a global public health problem, but accurately estimating drowning risk remains a challenge. Coastal drowning comprises a significant proportion of the drowning burden in Australia and is influenced by a range of behavioural factors (e.g. risk perception, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours) that are poorly understood. These factors, along with those that impact exposure (e.g. coastal visitation and activity participation) all impact on drowning risk. While excellent mortality and morbidity data exists in Australia, a lack of coastal participation data presents challenges to identifying high-risk groups or activities and prioritising prevention efforts. This methods paper describes the development and evolution of an ongoing, annual, nationally representative online survey as an effective tool used to capture valuable data about the Australian population’s relationship with the coast. This paper explores how the survey is structured (12–14 sections spanning multiple topics and themes), the different question types used (including open text, 4-digit responses and categorical questions), the sample size (1400–1600 respondents), sampling strategy (using demographic quota sampling which can then be post-weighted to the population if required) and how topics and themes have changed over time to enhance the quality of data collected (i.e., wording changes to enhance participant comprehension or data usability and changing issue-specific ‘feature’ topics of interest such as campaign evaluation). How the survey is implemented online is described, both practically through to third-party recruitment processes and ethically to maximise anonymity of respondents and ensure data quality. Interim analyses indicate the impact of considering exposure when calculating fatal drowning rates, especially by activity (e.g., crude boating drowning rate 0.12 per 100,000 population vs 0.95 per 100,000 exposed population [relative risk = 8.01; 95% confidence interval: 4.55–14.10]). This study highlights lessons learned in the process of conducting a nationally representative coastal participation survey as well as the strengths and limitations of adopting this approach. Data collected will provide more detailed information on the skills, behaviours, knowledge and attitudes of coastal activity participants. Analyses of this unique dataset will inform research that will underpin development and evaluation of coastal drowning prevention initiatives prioritising those most at risk. It is hoped that the methods detailed within this study may be useful for other countries to develop similar approaches to understanding their own population.

Abstract. The majority of drowning deaths on Australian beaches occur significant distances away from lifeguard services. This study uses results of 459 surveys of beachgoers at five beaches unpatrolled by lifeguards in New South Wales, Australia to improve understanding of who visits these beaches and why, and to identify risk factors associated with their beach safety knowledge and behaviour. Many unpatrolled beach users were infrequent beachgoers and weak swimmers, with poor rip current hazard identification skills, who did not observe safety signage that was present, and yet intended to enter the water to swim despite being aware that no lifeguards were present. The survey found that the main reasons beachgoers visited unpatrolled beaches were because they were conveniently close to their holiday accommodation, or they represented a quieter location away from crowds. Future beach safety interventions in Australia need to extend beyond the standard ‘swim between the flags’ message in recognition that people will always frequent unpatrolled beaches. Future beach safety interventions for unpatrolled beaches should be tailored towards the varied types of demographic beach users, such as domestic tourist families, males, and day visitors attracted by social media.