Skip to main content

OHS Sources of Information

 Occupational Health and Safety sources of information are subdivided into two main categories that includes;

  1. External Information Sources
  2. Internal Information Sources
These sources are defined below

  1. External Information Sources
These Sources Includes'

  • National governmental enforcement agencies such as the USA's OSHA (www.osha.gov), Western Australia's Worksafe ( www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe) and UK's HSE ( www.hse.govuk). These all produce legal and best practice guidance and statistics. Even if you are not under their regulatory control, their guidance can still be a valuable source of advice, especially where little or none exists in your region.

  • International bodies such as the European Safety Agency ( osha.europa.eu); the international labor Organization and their " safework" site ( www.ilo.org); and the World Health Organization (www.who.int)

  • Professional bodies such as IOSH (www.iosh.co.uk) and IIRSM (www.iirsm.org)

  • Trade unions a number of whom produce information on safety and matters. the trade union interest here may be in making members aware of the possible compensation areas.

  • Insurance companies, who set the levels of premiums and need data to calculate the probable risks of any venture. The average risks involved in most activities can be found in insurance tables. Since, the risk manager is involved in managing risks, these tables will be extremely useful, although getting hold of them may not be so easy.

  • Trade associations.

        2. Internal Information Sources

Internal information is the most relevant data for inorganization, but other sources will be needed for comparisons, unless the organist ion is large enough to give statistical significance.

There should be a source of accident and ill-health data, as well as near -miss information, within the company.
  • Accident reports will be the most obvious source. It is important that the information recorded is adequate for risk assessments. We need to be able to investigate factors which contributed to the accident which means making a clear distinction between "cause of accident" and "cause of injury".
  • Absence records may be another indication of problems. Health problems may not always be reported, so condition which are made worse by the work situation, rather than being caused by it, are not so easy to spot.
  • Maintenance records will usually show damage incidents. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accident / Incident Ratio Studies (F.E Bird Triangle)

The accident triangle, also known as Heinrich's triangle or Bird's triangle, is a theory of industrial accident prevention. It shows a relationship between serious accidents, minor accidents and near misses and proposes that if the number of minor accidents is reduced then there will be a corresponding fall in the number of serious accidents The triangle was first proposed by Herbert William Heinrich in 1931 and has since been updated and expanded upon by other writers, notable Franck E. Bird. It is often shown pictorially as a triangle or pyramid and has been described as a cornerstone of 20th century workplace health and safety philosophy. In recent times, it has come under criticism over the values allocated to each category of accident and for focusing only on the reduction in minor injuries. There is no shortage of data on incidents such as accidents or near misses. Some researchers have studied the figures in details and concluded that there appears to be a relationship b...
Post a Comment
Read more

World Safety Day - 28 April

History of 28 - April;   The annual World Day for Safety and Health at Work on 28 April promotes the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally. It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries. The ILO celebrates the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on the 28 April to promote the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally. It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on emerging trends in the field of occupational safety and health and on the magnitude of work-related injuries, diseases and fatalities worldwide. With the celebration of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the ILO promotes the creation of a global preventative safety and health culture involving ILO constituents and all key stakeholders in this field...
Post a Comment
Read more

EVENT TREE ANALYSIS (ETA)

Event tree analysis ( ETA ) is a forward, top-down, logical modeling technique for both success and failure that explores responses through a single initiating event and lays a path for assessing probabilities of the outcomes and overall system analysis. This analysis technique is used to analyze the effects of functioning or failed systems given that an event has occurred.   ETA is a powerful tool that will identify all consequences of a system that have a probability of occurring after an initiating event that can be applied to a wide range of systems including: nuclear power plants, spacecraft,  and chemical plants. This technique may be applied to a system early in the design process to identify potential issues that may arise, rather than correcting the issues after they occur. With this forward logic process, use of ETA as a tool in risk assessment can help to prevent negative outcomes from occurring, by providing a risk assessor with the probability of occurrence...
Post a Comment
Read more