Editorial

Abstract

We are excited to share this editorial for the second issue of Volume 12 in 2023. In this issue, the International Journal of Emergency Services (IJES) is again publishing nine original articles that explore a range of subjects relevant to the three main emergency services (ambulance police and fire) including other agencies involved in disaster preparedness and management. It includes focused themes such as impact of COVID-19 on first responders, mental health and stress patterns in call centers and firefighters, emergency preparedness and multi-agency collaboration and decision-making issues. All the nine papers address a research gap on the issues being examined and make a significant contribution to emergency management literature, and improve the scholarly and practitioner understanding of the emergency services.In our first article entitled "A systematic review of the factors that contribute towards mental health in the fire service", Lydia Garmon-Jones, Paul Hanna and Mary John highlight the growing concerns surrounding the mental health and post-traumatic stress within firefighters. Their systematic literature review highlights those factors such as sleep, occupational stress, length of service, coping style and social support, as discussed in the literature, do influence negative mental health within firefighters. However, this paper highlights challenges for distinguishing the nature of these relationships due to the possible bi-directional nature of the relationships and calls for further research to explore the biological, psychological and social factors influencing mental health outcomes in firefighters and the direction of these relationships, to inform effective intervention and support. Findings are relevant for first responders in other settings (Lawn et al., 2020).Annika Eklund, Sofia Karlsson and Lina Gyllencreutz, in their paper entitled "Building "common knowledge" when responding to major road tunnel incidents: an inter-organisational focus group study" highlight several challenges in a tunnel environment which is currently under-researched), for the emergency service organizations in terms of heat, visibility and lack of experiences from working in confined environments. The study explores the usefulness of the "common knowledge" framework (Edwards, 2011) in field of collaborative tunnel responses. Empirical evidence was gathered from participants recruited from the road traffic control center, emergency dispatch center, emergency medical service, rescue service and police in Sweden. This study illustrated how common knowledge is built to adjust responses due to distances and aligned motives, where primary responsibilities and access to plans and information diverge in road tunnel incidents. The findings contribute with a motive orientation to the continuous discussion of developing collaboration while sharing and aligning knowledge in practice and have a wider significance to support the ability to act in even more complex contexts and settings.Our third article in this issue explores the...