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American Public Health Association
133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
APHA 2005
 
5180.0: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 2:30 PM

Abstract #117000

Role of Root Cause Analysis in Developing Recommendations to Prevent Workplace Incidents

Jordan Barab, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2175 K St, Washington, DC 20037, 202-261-7673, jordan.barab@csb.gov

Investigations of workplace “accidents” can take many forms. Often only the direct causes are identified, for example “Worker error, worker opened the wrong valve,” followed by a very narrow recommendation that “Worker should be more careful” or “Worker should be terminated.” In reality, however, there are almost always “root” or underlying causes that, when identified, will result in recommendations that wold have prevented not only that specific incident, but a variety of similar accidents from happening again. The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board uses root cause analysis to evaluate the causes of major chemical accidents and develop broad recommendations. The same techniques can be used in smaller incidents, as well. This presentation will use actual case studies of incident investigations that used root cause analysis and contrast these with cases where only the direct cause was evaluated and evaluate which method is more effective for developing recommendations that will best prevent similar incidents in the future.

Learning Objectives:

Keywords: Occupational Safety, Prevention

Related Web page: www.csb.gov

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Quantitative Methods in OSH

The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA