Ergonomics and the quality of living

The purpose of this paper (which is based on the presidential address to the Annual Meeting of the Ergonomics Society of Australia and New Zealand, at Melbourne University on 19 August 1971) is to consider ways in which ergonomics could contribute to the quality, even maintenance, of life, and to consider the need and justification for ergonomics to adopt this role. The author discusses society unhealth, environmental degradation, drug abuse and death as examples of social issues in which ergonomics could be applied with advantage. He concludes that ergonomics has much to contribute, and responsibility to contribute, to the quality of living, particularly in bringing and interdisciplinary and scientific approach to such issues, whose improvement is presently hindered by uninformed enthusiasm, prejudice, sectional interests and apathy.