For years, we’ve hypothesized that better work planning leads to better control of high-energy hazards, and that better control of high-energy hazards leads to fewer serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). Now we have the empirical evidence.
In our latest paper in the Journal of Safety Research, we analyzed data from 31 organizations to examine the relationships among:
• The quality of pre-job safety brief discussions
• The control of high-energy hazards (measured as HECA)
• Long-term SIF performance
The results were clear: Organizations with higher-quality pre-job safety briefs demonstrated better control of high-energy hazards. And organizations with stronger control of high-energy hazards experienced substantially fewer SIFs over the long term (see Figure below).
This is important because it demonstrates that organizations no longer need to wait years for injury statistics to understand whether they are improving. By measuring the quality of work planning and the control of high-energy hazards (HECA), organizations can monitor and improve the conditions that lead to SIFs before anyone gets hurt. In practical terms, these findings suggest that HECA and the quality of pre-job safety briefs are strong leading indicators of long-term SIF performance.
I wanted to conduct this study for more than a decade, but it only became possible because 31 organizations were willing to share their data and open their jobsites to our students for extended periods. This is the power of the Construction Safety Research Alliance.
Congratulations to Arnaldo Bayona for leading this work, and to Sid Bhandari and Yaqoob Raheemy for their outstanding contributions.
As with all CSRA research, the paper is open access thanks to the generosity of our member organizations. Please feel free to read it, share it, and build on it.
The paper is available for free here: https://lnkd.in/gzdPG8ck