Occupational Risk Assessment and Management in a System Approach: the Why and the How

Occupational Safety and Health - OS&H problems still remain an important criticality in many Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community - NACE sectors in Italy. Even if the official Italian statistical data published by National Institute for Work Injury Insurance - Inail show some fluctuations in the yearly accident and health impairment rates, the 3 fatalities/day figure proves difficult to modify, and the number of traditional and new professional diseases remains very impressive (officially approximately 2/year deadly diseases). An extensive and in deep analysis of a number of case histories, carried out by means of an innovative technique (namely the Computer aided Cause Consequence for Prevention - CCCP approach) conclusively proved that this unacceptable scenario results from the following causes: a - Hazard Factors (situations, materials, substances, organization, reasonably predictable faults and errors in terms of Worst Credible Case - WCC, etc.) poor Identification, directly involving the absence of special prevention countermeasures; b – Poor Risk Assessment, involving under or overestimation of the seriousness of some safety problems, and hence a misguided organization of the prevention; c – Poor Risk Management, basically in terms of lacking internal/external audits of situations/operations vs the Risk Assessment results, lacking risk assessment revision in case of scenery modifications, and lacking conservation along the time of the safety measures resulting from the risk assessment. A side cause of the modest success of the actions aimed to modify the previously mentioned concerning occupational safety scenery is that the Heinrich approach (prevention can be implemented from information on the frequency of deviations from a correct working situation) is applied in a generalized way without discussion. But the Heinrich model is based on a “Person Approach” (the misconduct of victims or colleagues is the main cause of deviation, in spite of the obvious consideration that they and they only are in direct contact with the Hazard Factor). A Guideline based on a System Approach (the system approach concentrates on the conditions under which individuals work and tries to build defences to avert errors or mitigate their effects) was developed and successfully tested in a number different situations. The basic principia of the guideline, coherent with both the 89/391 EEC Directive and the OS&H in quality criteria, can be summarized in a 3E list: E1 - Engineering: Prevention through Design – PtD, focused to guarantee the highest safety level technically achievable through comparative analysis of alternative solutions, and the possible faults, human errors included (a formal demonstration is necessary); E2 - Education: information, education and training actions at every hierarchic level, derived from a Risk Assessment and Management specially conceived for the situation under exam; E3 - Enforcement: checking with internal/external audits the preservation through time of the safety level made possible by the PtD approach, and consideration of further improvements made available by the technical and epidemiology improvements. The paper discusses the previous aspects, and the Why and the How of the suggested Occupational Risk Assessment and Management technique in a System Approach.