1. Home
  2. TRID
  3. View Record
https://www.nationalacademies.org/trb/events

CATASTROPHE MODELING OF THE ACCIDENT PROCESS: EVALUATION OF AN ACCIDENT REDUCTION PROGRAM USING THE OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS SURVEY

The report details a catastrophe theory model of the accident process with empirical validation. According to the cusp model, two distinct levels of risk can be observed for a distribution of group accident rates, one at 0.0 Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA)-reportable accidents per 100 person-years of exposure and one at 11.5. Changes within or between the two levels are determined by two control parameters: environmental hazard (asymmetry) and operator load (bifurcation). The sample consisted of 68 work groups from 8 Milwaukee-Chicago area sheet metal mills and foundries who completed the Occupational Hazards Survey (OHS). The OHS contributed six bifurcation variables (safety management, life stress, physical stress anxiety, beliefs about accident control, and experience) and two asymmetry variables (environmental hazards and danger). All organizations received an interpretive report of their survey responses with recommendations for accident control, and had held their reports for two to nine months at the time the follow-up accident rate data were collected. There were two additional bifurcation variables: months holding report and group size. Regression analysis determined that the cusp model (R square = .42) was more than twice as accurate as the best log-linear or linear alternative. Accidents were successfully controlled by safety managers' attention to recommendations produced by the OHS analysis. Catastrophe theory provided some novel insights regarding the linkage between predictor variables and actual behavior. Research has shown that a substantial percentage of occupational accidents are the result of human error. In an effort to explain and predict such errors in a systematic manner, an accident process model based on the cusp catastrophe is developed and tested. The model offers several unique and useful properties. Environmental and human performance factors can be operationalized as sets of more specific variables. In this application, The Occupational Hazards Survey was used to gather data from mill and foundry workers pertaining to hazards and dangers, adequacy of safety management, stress, anxiety, and beliefs about accident control. Workgroup size was included as an additional predictor variable in the human performance category. The experiment evaluated change in accident rates as a function of initial accident rates, survey variables, group size, and implementations of recommendations derived from the survey data. On the basis of the results, it was possible to conclude (1) qualitative variables and recommendations significantly impacted on accident rates, and that (2) the nonlinear model was a superior predictor of change compared to a linear model containing the same qualitative variables.

  • Availability:
  • Corporate Authors:

    Pergamon Press, Incorporated

    Headington Hill Hall
    Oxford OX30BW,    
  • Authors:
    • Guastello, S J
  • Publication Date: 1989-2

Media Info

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00480655
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: HS-040 850
  • Files: HSL, TRIS
  • Created Date: Mar 31 1991 12:00AM