In March 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic. As of May 2021, the WHO's online COVID dashboard reports over 153 million cases and over 3.2 million deaths worldwide (WHO, 2021). At the time of writing the global economic costs are estimated to be in the region of 28 trillion dollars (International Monetary Fund, 2020).

In these unprecedented circumstances, countries around the globe have rapidly responded to control and manage the outbreak. A critical aspect of this response has involved either introducing interventions with the intention of fundamentally changing human behavior, or enacting change to cope with changes in human behavior, both in society and work. Further, healthcare systems worldwide have had to rapidly adapt to enable treatment and prevention of the disease.

As the scientific discipline concerned with understanding interactions between humans and other elements of complex systems to optimize human health and well-being (International Ergonomics Association, 2000), human factors and ergonomics (HFE) has played a critical role in this multi-faceted response. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) rapidly issued design guidelines for new ventilator manufacturers and procedural guidance for bedside care of ventilated patients (CIEHF, 2020). In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration published recommendations on preparing workplaces for COVID-19 (OSHA, 2020). These, along with mandatory health and safety standards, encompassed broad recommendations for all job places, to specific recommendations according to the risk of workplace exposure. Now, with the vaccine rollout, healthcare workers are required to administer vaccines in nonstandard settings, with unique logistical challenges (i.e., positioning the arm from inside a vehicle). The American Society of Safety Professionals published guidance to prevent needlestick injuries in response to these unusual scenarios (ASSP, 2021). Furthermore, in Northern Ireland, the Northern Health and Social Care Trust undertook an analysis of HFE adaptions made to an intensive care unit (ICU). This highlighted the importance of human-centered design and supported the redesign of ICU workstations and procedures (Smith, 2021). As the pandemic has evolved the CIEHF guidelines have reflected challenges facing society including working from home, safe practices for returning to workplaces and schools and most recently principles to support the safe rollout of vaccination programs (CIEHF, 2021). This echoes efforts made by HFE practitioners and researchers around the globe, and in doing so has been an opportunity to demonstrate how HFE transcends manufacturing and service industries, with common challenges experienced across all sectors of society.

There is no question that the methods and approaches used in HFE lend themselves to analyzing COVID-19 from micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis encompassing device, operator, team, organization, and system performance. As well as informing the design of tools and interfaces, working practices, and work and social environments, HFE can also contribute to the design of policies and procedures and organizational risk and safety management. As such, there is large body of ongoing work involving the application of HFE theory and methods in support of the response to COVID-19.

The aim of this special issue is to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to present some of these applications of HFE in support of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The intention is to showcase the range of HFE applications that are being undertaken in support of the global response and to further promote the notion that HFE should form part of multi-disciplinary efforts aiming to respond to major global risks and existential threats (e.g., Salmon et al., 2019; Thatcher et al., 2020, 2018). It is hoped that the special issue contributions will inspire the HFE community to pursue further applications, both in support of the response to COVID-19 and also as part of the response to other threats such as climate change, human environmental damage, food and water security, weapons of mass destruction, and other infectious diseases (World Economic Forum, 2020).

The collection of papers in this special issue address the HFE response to COVID-19 impacts, the design of work, teaching and public environments, the design of COVID-19 management systems, as well as domain-specific considerations in healthcare, construction, and rail. An overview of each article is provided below following which the key take-home messages from the special issue are articulated.

2020 年 3 月，世界卫生组织 (WHO) 宣布新型冠状病毒 SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) 爆发为大流行病。截至 2021 年 5 月，世卫组织的在线 COVID 仪表板报告了全球超过 1.53 亿例病例和超过 320 万例死亡（世卫组织，2021 年）。在撰写本文时，全球经济成本估计在 28 万亿美元左右（国际货币基金组织，2020 年）。

在这些史无前例的情况下，全球各国迅速做出反应，控制和管理疫情。这种应对措施的一个关键方面涉及引入干预措施以从根本上改变人类行为，或实施变革以应对社会和工作中人类行为的变化。此外，世界范围内的医疗保健系统必须迅速适应以实现对该疾病的治疗和预防。

作为关注理解人类与复杂系统其他元素之间相互作用以优化人类健康和福祉的科学学科（国际人体工程学协会，2000 年），人为因素和人体工程学 (HFE) 在这种多方面的反应中发挥了关键作用. 例如，在英国，英国特许人体工程学和人因学会（CIEHF）迅速发布了新呼吸机制造商的设计指南和呼吸机患者床边护理的程序指南（CIEHF，2020）。在美国，职业安全与健康管理局发布了关于为 COVID-19 准备工作场所的建议（OSHA，2020）。这些以及强制性的健康和安全标准包括针对所有工作场所的广泛建议，以及根据工作场所暴露风险的具体建议。现在，随着疫苗的推出，医护人员需要在非标准环境中接种疫苗，面临着独特的后勤挑战（即从车内定位手臂）。美国安全专业人员协会针对这些异常情况发布了预防针刺伤的指南（ASSP，2021 年）。此外，在北爱尔兰，Northern Health and Social Care Trust 对重症监护病房 (ICU) 的 HFE 改造进行了分析。这突出了以人为本的设计的重要性，并支持了 ICU 工作站和程序的重新设计（史密斯，2021 年）。随着大流行的发展，CIEHF 指南反映了社会面临的挑战，包括在家工作、返回工作场所和学校的安全做法以及支持安全推出疫苗接种计划的最新原则（CIEHF，2021 年）。这与全球 HFE 从业者和研究人员所做的努力相呼应，并借此机会展示了 HFE 如何超越制造和服务行业，应对社会各界所面临的共同挑战。

毫无疑问，HFE 中使用的方法和方法有助于从微观、中观和宏观层面分析 COVID-19，包括设备、操作员、团队、组织和系统性能。除了为工具和界面的设计、工作实践以及工作和社会环境提供信息外，HFE 还可以为政策和程序的设计以及组织风险和安全管理做出贡献。因此，有大量正在进行的工作涉及应用 HFE 理论和方法来支持对 COVID-19 的响应。

本期特刊的目的是为研究人员和从业人员提供一个平台，展示 HFE 的其中一些应用，以支持应对 COVID-19 大流行。目的是展示为支持全球应对而正在进行的 HFE 应用范围，并进一步宣传 HFE 应成为旨在应对全球主要风险和生存威胁（例如，鲑鱼）的多学科努力的一部分的概念。等人，2019 年；撒切尔等人，2020 年，  2018 年）。希望特刊的贡献将激励 HFE 社区寻求进一步的应用，既支持应对 COVID-19，也作为应对气候变化、人类环境破坏、食物和水等其他威胁的一部分安全、大规模杀伤性武器和其他传染病（世界经济论坛，2020 年）。

本期特刊中的论文集涉及 HFE 对 COVID-19 影响的响应、工作、教学和公共环境的设计、COVID-19 管理系统的设计，以及医疗保健、建筑和轨。下面提供了每篇文章的概述，然后阐明了特刊中的关键信息。