2015-07-21
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An accident is unintentional event. The direct cause of a preventable accident could be human error or some unsafe condition - mechanical, physical, chemical or environmental. The latent or potential causes are hazards. A hazard is a condition with the potential of causing injury or damage.
Hazard recognition, diagnosis and elimination are essential to any successful safety programme. There are numerous interrelated factors involved that can be identified as the causes of a specific unintentional injury event. These may be identified as human factors, mechanical factors and environmental factors.
Human Factors. Often the primary causes of an injury resulting circumstances center upon the individual or human factors. For many people safety and injury prevention basically focuses on adhering to certain rules and regulations.
Many substances have detrimental effects upon the physical performance of an individual. Most commonly considered is the effect of abuse substances of alcohol and drugs.
Mechanical factors.Not all injury-producing circumstances are the sole result of human failure. Many fatal and injury-resulting situations occur from some kind of mechanical failure. Mechanical failure can lead to tragedies causing hundreds of deaths.
There are many measures that can be taken to reduce risk due to such failures. Improved engineering, manufacturing and quality control strategies can reduce the possibility of mechanical failure. Also, regular maintenance of engines and mechanical parts that involve movement and friction or wear must be considered a major preventive measure that will help to reduce the risk of unintentional injury events.
Environmental factors.A safe work environment is important. Daily, individuals are exposed to many situations that can be dangerous to the personal safety and well-being of the employee. One’s well-being, both personal and economic, is impacted by how safe a person is from injury associated with the workplace.
Innumerable factors in our surroundings, so-called environmental factors, may contribute to unintentional injury events. Many measures may be employed to reduce the hazardous nature of a given environment.
