Citation

Dawes JG, Davies JKW. J. Occup. Accid. 1977; 1(2): 123-134.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Safety Committees have been set up in many factories and other places of work and often find it useful to compare the accident record of the workforce under their immediate jurisdiction with the general accident experience of a larger group of workers exposed to similar hazards and conditions. The application of statistical methods to the study of industrial accidents is discussed and a simple statistically-based graphical procedure is proposed to aid Safety Committees in making such comparisons.Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the paper present, in a form intended to be suitable for circulation to Safety Committees, a commentary and a set of instructions which can be used to indicate whether the number of accidents during a particular period in the workforce under consideration is greater than, less than or not different from that which would be expected if the workforce had been exposed to a level of hazard represented by a particular, assumed, accident rate. Rules that must be obeyed when adopting such an assumed accident rate are presented.The problems that may arise when the workforce under study is small are discussed.

An Appendix sketches the basic statistical concepts employed.