Computer-aided Advanced Technique for the Analysis of Occupational Accidents

Even if since many years a remarkable effort has been implemented in Italy to reduce the number of occupational fatalities, the same is still impressive, at least in terms of frequency rate; moreover, the recent crisis and large-scale job reductions made the data analysis somehow more complex. Stated that Risk Management is the final goal of Occupational Risk Analysis, the available national databases are a precious instrument for prevention. Still, some common misuses of the statistical data can lead to biased forecasting of expectable accident rates, and they consequently produce important distortions in the prevention action. This is commonly due to one or more of the following causes: 1 – reduced statistical basis (at regional scale, without consideration of the local industrial situation), 2 – poor analysis of boundary data (e.g. Economic and occupational situation), 3 – wrong range of time for the aggregation of the accident data, causing overestimation of catastrophic exceptional events. Some databases (e.g. US DOL OSHA) importantly evolved from the traditional approach (based on the Heinrich model), to new models including information on the violations of the safety standards, which play a pivotal role for an exhaustive Risk Assessment (in absence of this datum only Attention Index can be inferred). In any case, a quite useful input for an effective occupational risk prevention is an unbiased knowledge of the embedded causes of the work-related accidents. Such causes (namely Root Causes) lay at the very base of the events chain leading to the accident: a limited comprehension of Root Causes can involve slapdash remedies, occasional audits and inspections clearly inadequate to highlight and control the criticalities of complex activities. Since some years a research team working at Politecnico di Torino, Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, developed, on the basis of an extensive investigation on the different approaches to the work-related accident analysis, the original CCCP (Computer-aided Cause Consequence for Prevention) technique. CCCP was specifically conceived for the in-depth examination of single accidents and is not affected by the problems of data availability and quality, even if the national/foreign statistical data are still an eligible reference. Moreover, a two-way approach makes possible to analyze both the specific occurred accident, and to verify the expectable effectiveness of preventive measures in a large number of situations. The integrate software environment Infortuni sul lavoro (Work related accidents) - Root Causes translates the theoretical model into a useful computer guide. All the occurrences are strictly codified with the aim of making the analysis objective and free from ambiguity. Cccp leads to focus on the intermediate and root causes of work-related accidents minimizing the influence of subjective judgment or hasty evaluations, and the too easily reached conclusion of incorrect behavior of the victim. The research group has been testing CCCP on a number of case histories of fatal accidents in different ATECO sectors analyzed within the framework of Prosecutor Investigation gaining real interesting results, in an analysis environment complete, user friendly and, thanks to its system approach, immune from errors due to subjective judgments or hasty evaluations. Some case histories on occurred fatal accidents will be provided and discussed in the presentation. The research work is funded by INAIL (the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work), within the project “Centre for Studies on Safety Culture and Prevention” established in 2011.