Abstract
Serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) occurring in the workplace have become a significant focus in the field of safety. Over the past 20 years there has been a steady decline in the prevalence of all injuries, however the rates of SIFs have plateaued in recent years, contrary to Heinrich's Triangle. In one of the largest studies of its kind, we set out to identify trends and common factors of SIF incidents to identify strategies to reduce the risk of SIF incidents occurring.
We have studied OSHA log records and OSHA recorded fatalities of over 50,000 companies over multiple years broken down by numerous different indicies including industry, age, day of the week, body part affected, type of incident and severity of incident to give a picture of SIF prevalence and trends. This data has also been cross referenced against qualititive information of these companies to identify trends, commonalities and disparities in order to identify causes and opportunities for improvement.
The data reported on has shown different risk groups for SIF incidents occurring, that 60% of companies are at low risk of SIF incidents occurring and identifying the highest risk injuries for SIF events occurring (drilling and construction work). In addition, seemingly random factors such as day of the week and month of they year are found to statistically vary, presenting opportunities for targetted outreach based on this data in order to reduce risk. Furthermore, the study reveals companies who work with chemicals, performing welding work and work at heights should be the top targets for SIF prevention intervention, whilst the impact of heavily regulated industries (e.g., PSM facilities) and ensuring organisations have good safety procedures are linked to lower risks of SIF events occuring.
This information is of valuable use for all organisations who are interested in truly understanding the root causes of incidents and learning techniques to achieve a Vision Zero of a reduction of incidents, particularly serious injuries and fatalities, to the lowest possible level. A no-blame culture to the accurate reporting of incidents is also vital to a deeper understanding of causation and prevention.