Svenska offpistskidåkares förutsättningar att hantera lavinfara : Individuella och kontextuella faktorers påverkan på risktagandet

Sammanfattning: Every winter die statistically, two to three Swedes in avalanche accidents. Approximately eight out of ten are killed abroad even though only one out of eight Swedes skis outside Sweden. Swedes seem to die in a greater extent than other nationalities abroad. It is not possible to find similar trends in other nationalities mortality in avalanche accidents in skiing abroad.Why do Swedes die in a greater extent than other nationalities when skiing abroad? The overarching question is broken down into two parts. Firstly which are the Swedish off-piste skier’s individual abilities to handle avalanche risk? Secondly how does the domestic knowledge and communication environment look like with respect to avalanche risk?No previous studies have addressed the relationship between individual and contextual factors on management of avalanche risk in a foreign environment. Possible causes of avalanche accidents are described in the literature, with a focus on individual factors.Four studies were conducted to describe the Swedish off-piste skier's individual and contextual factors associated with the handling avalanche risk. The first study was a web-based questionnaire about the experience, knowledge, attitude to risk, and more. The second study was a statistical analysis of the Swedish public avalanche danger ratings during ten years. The third study was a literature review of Swedish avalanche literature from 1943 onwards. The last and fourth study was an online survey with questions about access, quality and relevance, and more with regard to Swedish avalanche communication.The various studies were triangulated with respect to data and methodology in relation to a number of research questions, formulated on the basis of the relationship between perception and preparation on one hand and the experience and trust on the other. The results showed a consistent picture of both individual, and contextual variables. The studies describe Swedish off-piste skiers as experienced, trained, prepared and risk aware. The contextual study showed that the Swedish public avalanche communication is of autonomous nature, hard to find, mostly irrelevant and of uncertain quality and origin.Overall, this work has revealed a possible explanation model that needs to be explored in more detail with respect to how the Swedish off-piste skier's mental models can be described and how Swedish public communication about avalanches should be changed to reduce future mortality abroad among Swedish off-piste skiers.