Preventing Serious Injuries & Fatalities (SIFs)


  • Over the past decade non-serious workplace injuries have decreased, but fatalities have decreased at a much slower rate.
  • The present study findings call into question decades-long-held assumptions in the safety community.
  • Research results show that contributing factors are different between less-serious events and SIF events.
  • Precursors to SIFs exist in most organizations and can be identified and measured.
  • New paradigms are required to influence step changes in improving serious injury and fatality (SIF).





Over the past decade, serious events and fatalities do not show reduction rates comparable to less serious workplace injuries. This problem should raise serious questions and implications for safety leaders at all organizational levels, from the first level of supervision to the senior-most executive and board member, and to the labor leader and government regulator. Seven multinational corporations experiencing this pattern sought to develop a better understanding of the causes and correlates of SIFs. These organizations submitted two years of accident data related to SIFs, less-serious recordable injuries, and near-misses. In total, this data included 1,028 event cases representing approximately one million global workers and contractors. The result of this research ultimately leads to a better understanding of SIF causes and establishment of new paradigms for SIF prevention. Read the full white paper HERE.   Source: BST, ASSE, DEKRA Insight