Occupational safety and accident prevention : behavioral strategies and methods

218 Pages·1988·8.07 MB·English

by  Carl Hoyos

Advances in Human Factors/Ergonomics
Series Editor: Gavriel Salvendy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907,
U.S.A.
Vol. 1. Human-Computer Interaction (G. Salvendy, Editor)
Vol. 2. Human-Computer Dialogue Design (R.W. Ehrich and R.C. Williges,
Editors)
Vol. 3. Expertise Transfer for Expert System Design (J.H. Boose)
Vol. 4. Engineering Physiology: Physiologic Bases of Human Factors/
Ergonomics (K.H.E. Kroemer, H.J. Kroemer and K.E. Kroemer-Elbert)
Vol. 5. Human Factors Testing and Evaluation (D. Meister)
Vol. 6. Applications of Fuzzy Set Theory in Human Factors (W. Karwowski
and A. Mital, Editors)
Vol. 7. Human Reliability: Analysis, Prediction, and Prevention of Human Er-
rors (K.S. Park)
Vol. 8. Human Aspects of Occupational Vibration (D.E. Wasserman)
Vol. 9. Human Factors Research: Methods and Applications for Architects
and Interior Designers (J.E. Harrigan)
Vol. 10A. Social, Ergonomie and Stress Aspects of Work with Computers (G.
Salvendy, S.L. Sauter and J.J. Hurrell, Jr., Editors)
Vol. 10B. Cognitive Engineering in the Design of Human-Computer Interaction
and Expert Systems (G. Salvendy, Editor)
Vol. 11. Occupational Safety and Accident Prevention: Behavioral Strategies
and Methods (CG. Hoyos and B. Zimolong)
Advances in Human Factors/Ergonomics, 11
Occupational Safety and
Accident Prevention
Behavioral Strategies and Methods
Carl G. Hoyos
Department of Psychology and Education,
Munich Technical University, Munich, F.R.G.
Bernhard Zimolong
Department of Industrial and Organizational Psychology,
University of Bochum, Bochum, F.R.G.
ELSEVIER
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Barbara and Ursula
for their encouragement and
understanding
vii
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One may refer to low acceptance of preventive technical measures and
personal protective equipment, to deficits in safety knowledge, to risky
behavior and to human errors at work.
Modern technology has created a greater demand for increased system safety
due to greater capital cost, sophistication, complexity and capacity. The
consequences of unreliable behavior of equipment and human have become
increasingly more severe, not only for the industrial setting, staff and
workers, but also for the environment. The chemical accidents at Bhopal and
Basel/Rhine and the nuclear accidents at Three Miles Island and Tschernobyl are
examples of the tremendous risks for the population and environment created by
modern technology.
Safety engineering alone does not lead to a safety standard which as
acceptable by the public. Many hazards, especially unknown ones in new
technologies create dangerous situations for people at work. Dangerous
situations load typical demands on men: efforts to control hazards. Whenever
workers interact with hazards and must cope with them the danger potential
arises and the system reliability decreases. Therefore there is a tendency to
place greater emphasis on equipment and human reliability during system design
and system operation.
A human factors approach to safety not only takes into account the hardware
aspects of a system, but also such aspects as the human reliability and that of
the man-machine interaction. The new view considers the optimization of
technical, organizational and human elements in an overall system.
This change of view also results in a refined analysis and explanation of
accidents. The limits of a pure retrospective consideration of safety affairs
are well known, new insights in safety improvements cannot be gained before an
accident has happened; accident investigations rarely deliver suggestions for
improved reliability and systems safety. Safety practitioners will agree with
this statement: safety improvement is more than accident prevention.
A human factors approach with special emphasis on the human element
encompasses engineering and organizational techniques and methods. It focus on
the prerequisite conditions to safety behavior, on safety motivation and on
procedures to improve human reliability.
This book is an attempt to cover an overall view on occupational safety with
special emphasis on the human element. The text will be useful to readers such
as students of psychology and human factors engineering. Additionally, it holds
great utility for persons with engineering background, such as industrial
engineers, quality control engineers, system and design engineers and safety
viii
practitioners. Examples of empirical studies as well as suggestions for
practical measures are introduced to help in understanding the contents of the
text and to get the knowledge transformed into practice. Although the prime
objective of the book is to cover occupational safety from a human factors
point of view, nevertheless some of the related areas are also discussed. Among
others, they include problem solving in complex systems, judgmental and
heuristic biases in decision making as well as characteristics of decision
support systems in high risk industry. This clearly indicates the shift of
attention in occupational safety from work activities on the shop floor to
tasks of operators and supervisors in automated and semi-automated systems.
Ever since the beginning of the 1970s there has been a considerable growth
of the published literature especially on the topic of human reliability. Main
emphasis has been laid on technical aspects of human reliability, however, an
integrated safety approach combining safety engineering, organization and human
factors has been neglected. A safety practitioner faces inconvenience in
gathering information on the subject of occupational safety which covers as one
aspect human reliability. The information is found in technical reviews or only
briefly in some textbooks. The editor of the series on Advances in Human
Factors/Ergonomics encouraged us very much to make the attempt to compile the
state of the art in the field of occupational safety with special emphasis on
human factors. Thanks to Dr. Salvendy!
Our particular thanks go to our colleagues and associates who helped us
through discussion to sharpen our thinking on several topics of this book, not
to mention at least the authors mutually time and paper consuming discussion of
their compiled chapters. In particual we are indebted to C. Kewitz and C.
Plutzer for typing the manuscript under the ambitious rules of the publisher.
We wish to thank A. Studt and E. Gora for improving the English language of the
text and for proofreading the typed manuscript. We also wish to thank J.
Frettloh and H. Gleich for preparing all the diagrams for this text.
Carl G. Hoyos
Bernhard Zimolong
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 THE PROBLEM OF OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES
Official statistics fortunately show that reported occupational accidents
have been on the decrease since several years. The National Safety Council
(USA) reports that "between 1912 and 1984, accidental work-related deaths per
100.000 inhabitants decreased by 76 per cent, from 21 to 5. In 1912, an
estimated 18.000 to 21.000 workers' lives were lost. In 1984, in a work force
which had more than doubled in size and which had increased by more than a
factor of ten, only 11.500 work-related deaths were reported." (National Safety
Council, 1985). This quite satisfying result can be attributed to measures
taken in the areas of safety technology, education and law. The problem of
occupational accidents - as well as of accidents involving motor vehicles and
home accidents - has, however, not become less serious. In the USA today,
a fatal accident occurs every 6 minutes,
an occupational accident which results
in injuries occurs every 17 seconds,
a fatal occupational accident occurs every 46 minutes.
A more general idea of the number of accidents which occur can be obtained
from a report by Svenson (1978), according to which, in the sixth decade of
this century in Europe and the USA, 1.5 million fatalities resulted from
traffic accidents alone. What accidents cost the economy can not be exactly
determined, but estimates have been made. Hammer (1976, p. 5) cites the
following types of costs:
- hospital costs, compensation costs, pensions, reparation costs, etc. in the
case of injuries or death,
- court costs for claims proceedings,
- costs for rescue measures and gear,
- "use" of first aid gear,
- loss of one's ability to function and resulting loss of income,
- stoppage or reduction of operations as long as an inquiry into the
circumstances surrounding the accident is being conducted and the
consequences of the accident have not been fully accounted for,
- costs for the training of replacements,
- time lost for persons not directly involved with the accident (first aid,
inquiries concerning damage), such as, for instance, management,
PR-personnel ,
2
- loss of prestige,
- payment for expertise, for government representatives etc.
The National Safety Council has estimated that work accident costs in 1984
total $ 33.000.000,000:
$ 15.400.000.000 for direct costs (e.g., wage losses, costs for the
administration of insurance, medical costs),
$ 15.400.000.000 for indirect costs (e.g., values of time lost by workers
without disabling injuries, time required to investigate accidents or to write
up accident reports),
$ 2.200.000.000 for fire losses (National Safety Council, 1985).
The extent of lasting damage and the amount of human suffering connected
with it would be impossible to quantify. The problem of accidents has vast
economic dimensions. How, then, is the individual citizen affected by this
problem, i.e., what does the distribution of accidents within certain
populations look like, for instance, within certain occupational groups?
Existing data offers us some information on personal risks. According to Gibson
(1976) the "Fatal Accident Frequence Rate (FAFR)" is an instrument which is
frequently used to express the risk of a fatal accident for a certain
population group. The FAFR is defined as the number of deaths for 10 hours of
risk exposure, i.e., activity in the designated hazard area. If an industrial
worker works a total of 2.000 hours a year and does this same type of work for
40 years (an assumption which seldom applies today), then the FAFR corresponds
TABLE 1.1
"Fatal Accident Frequency Rates" (FAFR) for different jobs and activities in
Great Britain (after Gibson 1976)
FAFR for different jobs in industry
Chemical industry 3.5
British industry in general 4
Steel industry 8
Fishing 35
Mining 40
Rail road shunter 45
Ai r crew 250
Professional boxer 7000
FAFR for different non-industrial activities
At home 3
Bus driving 3
Railroad driving 5
Car driving 57
Riding on a bicycle 96
Ai r travel 1ing 240
Riding on a motorbike 260
Riding on a motor-cycle 660
Canoeing 1000
Mountain climbing 4000
3
to the number of fatal accidents which can be expected for 1.250 workers in the
course of all the years during which they work.
The FAFR for certain types of work can be found in Table 1.1: these values
are for Great Britain. Since for every 400 - 500 work-related injuries (those
for which reports are complusory) one fatal accident occures, the likelihood of
being injured in an accident can be estimated.
Determining which place fatal accidents occupy among the main causes of
death should, finally, prove instructive. A list of causes of death along with
ο
their frequency, based on 10 US-citizens a year, can be found in Lichtenstein
et al. (1978) (Tab.1.2). In this table, the prominent position of accidents
among the various causes of death becomes evident.
TABLE 1.2
List of causes of death (selected from Lichtenstein et al., 1978)
Smallpox 0
Botulism 1
Measles 2.4
Whooping cough 7.2
Lightning 52
Excess cold 163
Syphilis 200
Pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion 220
Infectious hepatitis 330
Appendicitis 440
Electrocution 500
Motor vehicle-train collision 740
Asthma 920
Firearm accident 1.100
Tuberculosis 1.800
Fire and flames 3.600
Drowning 3.600
Accidental falls 8.500
Homicide 9.200
Suicide 12.000
Diabetes 19.000
Motor vehicles (car, truck, or bus) accidents 27.000
All accidents 55.000
All cancer 160.000
Heart disease 360.000
All disease 849.000
1.2 COUNTERMEASURES
The range and dimensions of the problem area "accident" have, without doubt,
been recognized before now. The fundamental work done by Greenwood & Woods
(1919), Newbold (1929), Marbe (1926) and many others was not the first serious
and somewhat successful research on accident causes and prevention; work of
this type has existed since the early days of industrialization (compare Thiele
& Gottschalk, 1973). It has been regularly continued ever since, as every
4
society is faced with the neverending task of protecting their members from
danger. Accident prevention is, therefore, above all, a demand to which not
only the state and especially appointed agencies, but also every individual,
must subordinate themselves. Thus, in the past years,
- many laws dealing with the improvement of occupational safety have been made
in all industrialized countries;
- research institutes have been founded and research programs have been
conducted ;
- offices for the inspection of factories and workshops have been established;
- work on the safe construction of machines and equipment has made progress;
- campaigns have been started in factories as well as in public;
- attempts have been made to make employees receptive to safety-related
affairs.
1.3 THE ROLE OF HUMAN FACTORS IN INJURY PREVENTION
Safety technology and human factors. - To clarify the role of behavioral
sciences in connection with worker protection, it is necessary to show which
protection-oriented goals efforts toward more safety at work are dedicated to,
as well as how these are hierarchically set up (Fig. 1.1.). According to German
Fig. 1.1. Rank order and efficiency of accident prevention measures
(with permission of the Allgemeine Versicherungsanstalt Wien)
Industrial Standards(DIN 31 000), technical products must be produced in such a
way that they do not give rise to hazards in the course of being properly set
up or placed in position. According to these DIN-standards indirect, direct and
instructive safety technology are the available measures which should guarantee
a reliable warding off of hazards. In some cases it is possible to eliminate or
reduce hazardous energy. Examples are: elimination of man controlled ground
transportation processes at plants by reorganizing work processes;
preproduction of wall and roof elements on the ground instead of directly at