Citation

Altree-Williams S. J. Health Saf. Res. Pract. 2011; 3(1): 1-8.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Safety Institute of Australia, Publisher LexisNexis Media)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A consideration of the natural characteristics of causation in OHS has identified three functional domains into which OHS cases should be routinely separated for the purposes of statistical evaluation and prevention action. These domains are the OCCUPATIONAL INJURY(SAFETY) domain, the OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE domain, and the PUBLIC HEALTH INFLUENCE domain.

The separation of OHS cases by these three domains and the reporting of their separate rate data have the potential to greatly enhance the effectiveness of prevention initiatives because of the substantially different contribution to outcome within each domain made by factors such as hazard, hazard energy, exposure profile through time, individual susceptibility, and public health influence.

Such a separation should also be valuable for researchers using analysis of variance and hypothesis testing to objectively document the influences responsible for the OHS performance difference between industries (or occupations). It is also noted that the three domains align with the associations of OHS professional disciplines, the membership of which provides a valuable resource of ethically committed individuals whose technical knowledge within their discipline has been formally accredited through education, practice and certification benchmarks.

Language: en