High Accident Frequency Research Articles

Epidemiology of biological-exposure incidents among Spanish healthcare workers.

To determine the frequency and the epidemiological characteristics of biological-exposure incidents occurring among healthcare personnel. Prospective surveillance study. Participating Spanish primary-care and specialty centers from January 1994 to December 1997. 70 centers in 1994, 87 in 1995, 97 in 1996, and 104 in 1997. Absolute and relative frequencies were calculated for several variables (position held, area of care, type of injuring object, activity, etc) and for the different categories of each variable. There were 20,235 registered incidents. Annual incidence rates were as follows: 1994, 51 per 1,000; 1995, 58 per 1,000, 1996, 54 per 1,000; and 1997, 59 per 1,000. Mean age of accident victims was as follows: 1994, 35.68 (standard deviation [SD], 16.26); 1995, 33.6 (SD, 11.9); 1996,38.2 (SD, 17.27); and 1997, 36.7 (SD, 16.33) years. Of the 20,235 incidents, 15,860 (80.7%) occurred to women; 50% (9,833) accidents were among nursing staff. The type of incident most frequently reported was percutaneous injury (81.1%). The highest frequency of accidents was seen in medical and surgical areas (28% and 25.6%, respectively). Blood and blood products were the most commonly involved material (87.6%). Administration of intramuscular or intravenous medication was the activity associated with the highest accident rate (20.3%). The most frequent immediate action in response was rinsing and disinfecting (65.6%). The incident registry was highly stable in terms of incidence rates over the observation period and served to highlight the large number of incidents recorded each year. The potential implications of the results are the need to explore reasons for increased exposures in certain areas, with the aim of focusing prevention efforts, and, similarly, to establish the factors associated with diminished incidence rates to model successful measures.

Occupant injury protection in automobile collisions.

Modern technology has produced automotive vehicles that have become both a luxury and a necessity in modern civilization. They have become highly useful, even more varied in form and function, and capable of high speeds on crowded roadways. One unfortunate consequence is the high frequency of accidents and the greater severity of injuries when collisions do occur. In response, modern technology has produced a variety of safety and health features, devices and designs intended for better occupant protection on in high speed vehicles. Injury reduction has become a prime design objective, but there are residual risks, which, as technology evolves, require effective communication to those risk. There can be little risk avoidance behavior without awareness of the hazards and effective communication to the vehicle occupant, as to what could and should be done for self-protection. For example, one out of three drivers apparently fails to understand the function of head restraints, few understand the 'safe zone' posture required for air bags and many believe safety features should be adjusted only for comfort. Some of the current residual injury producing problems in occupant systems are specifically described here in order to illustrate what is needed in terms of both design remedies and health promotion activities.

Benchmarking haulroad design standards to reduce transportation accidents

Transport and tramming operations on South African mines are an area of considerable accident risk. In the context of surface mining, 74 percent of such accidents were associated with ore transfer by haul truck and service vehicle operations. However, the extent to which haul road design and operation activities impact on the overall safety of transport operations in mining was previously unclear, as was the status of road design activities for the various types of mining encountered This paper presents some findings from die Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee research project OTH308 which examined the role of haul road design in transportation accidents. The objective of research was to determine whether a relationship existed between haul road design, construction and maintenance practices and accidents. In the case of surface mines, the objective was addressed through an assessment of transportation accidents and incidents, together with an evaluation of formal haul road design activities and associated safety critical defects and accident potentials for the various classes of surface mines studied It was concluded that whilst the overall contribution to transportation accidents derived from inadequate road design alone was small, low tonnage surface mining operations exhibited higher accident frequency rates than the industry average. Furthermore, there was clear evidence to suggest that there was no formal recognition of road design and management in transportation management, especially in the case of smaller surface mining and quarrying operations. To improve awareness of the role of good design in reducing transportation accidents, a mine haul road safety audit system was developed. A mine haul road safety audit system is described and recommended as a means to attaining a reduction in transportation accidents through the structured recognition and assessment of haulage hazards and the application of optimally safe designs for mine haul roads.

Rehabilitation in the New Zealand logging industry

Work within the New Zealand logging industry is recognised as being dangerous and physically demanding, with relatively high accident and injury frequency rates. As a consequence, the financial cost of accidents to the New Zealand Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation (ACC), and ultimately the logging industry, is extremely high. One method of reducing this cost is to achieve an early return to work through the use of rehabilitation techniques. Some rehabilitation techniques are already being used by logging and transportation contractors; these could be increased and diversified with help from the ACC (the New Zealand injury insurance scheme) which currently offers a variety of rehabilitation options. This report presents a number of contractor and worker initiated rehabilitation case studies, as well as two examples of how the ACC can provide financial assistance to achieve an early return to work.

Immigrants and occupational accidents: A comparative study of the frequency and types of accidents encountered by foreign and Swedish citizens at an engineering plant in Sweden

The study concerns the relationship between citizenship and accidents, broken down by workshop, occupational group, age and experience, at a Swedish automobile and truck factory. It covers 537 accidents among personnel employed under collective agreement over the years 1986–1987. Comparisons between average annual frequency rates for Swedish and foreign citizens are made. The study offers no support for the view that immigrants are at greater risk than nationals for occupational accidents. In fact, most of the comparisons showed a higher accident frequency among workers of Swedish nationality, although statistically significant differences between groups were obtained in only a few cases. There was, however, a higher accident frequency for young and less experienced foreign citizens than for young Swedish nationals. In an analysis of the 178 accidents that occurred at the company's engine workshops, attention was also paid to the relationships between type of accident situation on the one hand and citizenship and country of birth on the other. These shops had a high proportion of immigrants and a relatively high accident frequency. A multivariate method of analysis was employed, involving the application of cross-tabulations and Chi-square tests to previously factored/clustered data. No significant difference between foreign and Swedish citizens emerged with respect to type of accident situation. This study does not indicate that there is a need for immigrants as a group to be specifically targeted in work designed to prevent occupational accidents.

The trash collection service: occupational risks versus damages to health

The authors studied the kind of work a sample of 36 garbage collectors have been doing in a city of the State of São Paulo. A high frequency of occupational accidents and sick-due to health problem and some occupational risks was observed among them, and also that these worker haven't worn the individual protection equipment received, that probably contributes to such number of stop working.

歩行線形による通路空間の形状に関する研究 : 小学校廊下の実態調査および実物大模型による歩行実験にもとづく曲がり角隅切処理の提案

Accident reports from 41 public schools and a questionnaire survey in a primary school confirmed high accident frequency at right-angled corners in corridors. A hypothesis was thus formulated that the rounding of corners, if given a sufficient radius, would significantly reduce head-on collisions, and was tested through video research of 203 flow lines in the same primary school and 608 flow lines in a series of full-sized models. The radius of 2.6 meters, which reduced the probability of corrision to 13 per cent, was recommended as a guideline for collision-free corridors.

Health and Health-related Problems in a Cohort of Apprentices in Switzerland

Out of a cohort of 1200 apprentices in Switzerland, 781 boys and 417 girls completed a questionnaire on their perceived health and health problems in their selected apprenticeship. Each participant was interviewed afterwards by the school nurses in three state-owned professional schools where the apprentices attended their classes. Ninety-five per cent of the respondents enjoyed excellent health, 28 cases had nervous system or psychological problems, 17 cases had problems of a locomotor nature, 12 subjects had gastrointestinal or endocrinological symptoms, and there was one with a past history of a malignant disease. Twelve cases also had respiratory symptoms or diagnoses. One hundred and nineteen apprentices reported that they had been troubled by the workplace. Exposure to solvents, chemicals in general, dust, smoke and noise were often mentioned as causes. Thirty-eight of them had contacted their family physician in connection with these problems. The cohort had experienced, mostly during their first year, 191 cases of accident necessitating medical care. Cuts, shocks and falls were the most common occurrences. Meat cutters and butchers had the highest frequency of accidents. Near-accidents had been experienced so far by 46 per cent of the respondents. At the interviews, school nurses provided counsel and intervened in flagrant cases of occupational risks. It seems that an ordinary medical certificate does not predict accident-proneness or possible medical problems, while in-school health programmes could provide rapid intervention and support.

Road traffic accidents in a Swedish municipality

A continuous all embracing registration of acute, in-patient and out-patient visits at hospitals and primary health care centres, was conducted in Skaraborg County in western Sweden. A special focus was directed at accident cases which account for 20% of the total number of acute visits. The accidents were divided up by environment: home, work, traffic and other. Cases of road traffic accidents have been mapped out in more detail with the help of standardised and structured surveys via telephone interviews, information from hospital records, and death certificates. This study aimed at achieving an increased understanding and knowledge about the accident pattern in the traffic environment in a municipality. Road traffic accidents accounted for 6.5% of all accidents. Cyclists, car drivers, car passengers and pedestrians were the most common victims. Children showed a high frequency of bicycle accidents. There was an increased risk of injury for young car-drivers. Thirty-six per cent were single-accidents. Cars and bicycles dominated among injury-inducing vehicles. Head, arm and knee injuries were most common. Twenty-six per cent of the victims were hospitalized. Safety devices were not used in 10% of cases where they should have been used according to legislation. A comparison of our registration system for road traffic accidents with the official statistics of Sweden reveals a substantial under-reporting of road traffic accidents in the latter. Consequently, a need exists for the surveillance of injuries by the public health services as a basis of injury control.

An Analysis of Motorcycle Disc Brake Dynamics and the Development of a Variable Characteristic Motorcycle Brake System

The physical performance of motorcycle braking systems has been the subject of both scientific study and government regulation in recent years. The task of applying the brakes on a motorcycle during an emergency stop is quite demanding, requiring as it does the independent modulation of front and rear braking effort so as to avoid wheel lock-up and consequent loss of directional control. However, very little information is available in the literature as to how the difficulty, or otherwise, of the braking task is related to the brake system characteristics. The motorcycle accident literature shows that riders typically do not make full use of the braking capacity of their machines, the front brake being especially underutilized. In view of this, and the relatively high frequency and severity of motorcycle accidents, the relationship between brake system feel properties and rider/cycle braking performance is a topic requiring urgent experimental investigation. To enable such experimentation to be preformed efficiently, a variable brake control gradient (VBCG) motorcycle has been developed and is described in this paper.

A method to investigate the safety level of small enterprises

The role of accident prevention in occupational health services was studied in 84 small enterprises in 1977–78. During the investigation of each enterprise, attention was focused on various types of hazards: hazards of construction; other environmental hazards; hazards of materials handling; hazards of burden handling; hazards of technical devices and machines. Hazards observed during the short visit to each enterprise were afterwards compared to officially reported accidents and the resulting injuries. The occurrence of accidents concentrated on those enterprises where the observed hazards were most significant. About 10 % of the accidents occurred in about 40 % of the enterprises where we found minor hazards. The high frequency of accidents and the lack of knowledge about occupational safety emphasize the role of accident prevention as well as other occupational health services to small enterprises. Accident prevention may be limited because of the background of occupational health personnel. However, it seems that focusing attention on obvious hazards promotes accident prevention.

Characteristics of jobs in high and low accident frequency companies in the light metal working industry

The study was conducted in nine light metal working factories in the Helsinki area. In four of the plants the accident frequency was less and in five it was higher than the average of this industry in Finland. Every sixth worker was selected for the study. Their jobs and places of work were described by a set of criteria related to accident potential. The results indicate that the dangers (e.g. unguarded machine parts) were more prevalent in the factories with the higher annual accident frequency. In the plants with higher accident frequency the jobs and tasks of individual workers were more varied, less frequently repeated, less preplanned, more mobile, and required assimilation of more complex information than those in the factories with low accident frequency. When the prevalence of the dangers was normalized for these factors very few differences remained between the two groups of plants.

Smog and traffic accident

Some measures to counter car accident have been taken from various angels in recent times, while their epidemiological consideration has not sufficiently been given. The presentation here is a study on the latter problem.Three elements have to be taken into account when car accident is to be investigated epidemiologically; first, car traffic itself, secondly what is related to main constituent factors such as driver's mental and physical fatigue or difficulties, and thirdly what is concerned with environmental factors such as road conditions, traffic jam, and effect of lighting.Present subject has been concentrated on the significance of smog as one of the links of environmental factors in causing car accident. For this purpose authors took up car accidents which occurred within the circle of two kilometer at the central Tokyo, its center being the Japanese Meteorological Observatory where smog has been observed scientifically. Data are based upon the 1960∼1962 meteorological observation records field in the Japanese Meteorological Observatory and upon the traffic accidents records registered by policemen. Since smog occurs more frequent in January and December, available data were recorded in both months in 1960∼1962.The following are the results authors obtained in connection with the relationship between the smog and the car accidents.1) The smog fosters car accidents during 3 hours from 9 to noon and 4 hours from 5 to 9 in the evening.2) The higher is the effective temperatuae the higher is the frequency of car accident.3) High rate of car-accident is observed between 17 to 21 hours below 30°ET, and above 40°ET high accident frequency is seen when there is no smog. At 30° to 39°ET high frequency is observed when there is no smog. While human injuries are more caused when ET is higher than 40° with smog during 3 hours to noon, but during 4 hours around the sunset time it is high when smog is prevailling especially slight human injuries are seen oftener.4) In terms of weather and effective temperature, the accident rate is higher when it is rainy and below 30°ET.5) The rate of accident is high when it is below 30°ET, smoggy and rainy, and if it is above 40°ET the rate is high when it is fine so far as it is smoggy, but under the same condition the rate of slight human injuries are high when it is raining. If it is 30° to 39°ET, slight human iujuries are oftener met when it is fine so far as it is smoggy.

Accidental Poisoning as an Indication of High Accident Frequency

Accidental Poisoning as an Indication of High Accident Frequency