Engaging beachgoers for drowning prevention: the spillover effects on non-participants

ABSTRACT Despite reduced drowning incidence at lifeguard patrolled beaches, 71 drowning fatalities occurred on Australian beaches last year (2021–2022). Prevailing drowning prevention practices on beaches include patrolling lifeguards positioning safety flags in less hazardous locations and encouraging beachgoers to swim between them. Such methods represent a ‘deficit based’ approach to community engagement, in which experts determine acceptable behaviours and encourage adherence using a one-way transfer of information. Deficit based approaches can be useful, but participatory forms of community engagement are hypothesised to support learning that can transfer to other locations and through non-participants’ social networks. Using a lifeguard patrolled beach in Gerroa, Australia as a case study, we employed a ‘relationship building’ methodology to explore whether engagements on the beach can prompt transformational learning and whether such learning spills over to non-participants or to unpatrolled locations. Findings from 49 survey-interview engagements and 15 follow-up interviews suggest that building relationships with researchers is an enjoyable form of community engagement that contributes to learning about risk; simultaneously, findings suggest that learning can transform beachgoers’ intentions and practices at unpatrolled beaches. This paper provides a broadened theoretical and empirical model of community engagement aimed at beach drowning risk prevention via relationship building. Key policy highlights Engaging beachgoers via relationship building facilitates learning about beach risk, resulting in spillover effects to non-participants and to (unpatrolled) contexts. Engaging communities through dialogue is more likely to have a lasting influence on behaviours compared with deficit-based forms of engagement. Spillover effects to children, family, and friends provide evidence of who participatory research can have a ‘successful’ impact on. Experienced beachgoers discussing the engagement with others demonstrates how relationship building creates opportunities for experienced participants to demonstrate care for others. This study provides a broadened theoretical and empirical model of engagement aimed at beach drowning risk prevention via relationship building.