Citation

Amell TK, Kumar S, Rosser BWJ. Int. J. Ind. Ergonomics 2002; 29(4): 199-210.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This paper supports the information found in the first part of this two-part article. The Occupational Injury And Illness surveillance data contained herein were extracted from an integrated loss control reporting system. This paper describes the incidents reported over a 10-yr period at a mid-sized industrial organization in terms of the occupational injury or illness (incident character, body part injured, nature of injury) and the cause of the incident (basic cause, substandard actions and conditions, contributing factors and remedial work to control efforts). These data are presented for the express purpose of justifying the usefulness of loss management data for the targeting and evaluation of ergonomic programs and initiatives. The 10-yr data capture revealed that during this time frame over 14,000 incidents were recorded. The most common types of incidents involved being struck by objects and overexertions while the most commonly injured body parts were the fingers, back, head and eyes. The most common nature of injury were sprains, bruises and cuts. Low work standards and inadequate job/task/tool design were frequently noted as the basic cause while the most common substandard actions contributing to the incident were workers being inattentive to ambient job hazards and utilizing unsafe work positions. Trying to avoid extra effort was consistently cited as a major contributing factor. Design improvements were cited as remedial action in up to 13% of incidents.Relevance to industryIn order to be of utility to an organization, ergonomic programs and initiatives must have a sound method of targeting the most appropriate area for intervention as well as an accurate and timely method of evaluation. The loss control reporting system employed by advocates loss management is just such a tool. The elements of the loss control reporting system pertinent to ergonomic programs as well as examples of the data they provide are presented in the second part of this two-part article.