TY - JOUR
T1 - Workplace accidents and self-organized criticality
AU - Mauro, John C.
AU - Diehl, Brett
AU - Marcellin, Richard F.
AU - Vaughn, Daniel J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/9/15
Y1 - 2018/9/15
N2 - The occurrence of workplace accidents is described within the context of self-organized criticality, a theory from statistical physics that governs a wide range of phenomena across physics, biology, geosciences, economics, and the social sciences. Workplace accident data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal a power-law relationship between the number of accidents and their severity as measured by the number of days lost from work. This power-law scaling is indicative of workplace accidents being governed by self-organized criticality, suggesting that nearly all workplace accidents have a common underlying cause, independent of their severity. Such power-law scaling is found for all labor categories documented by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our results provide scientific support for the Heinrich accident triangle, with the practical implication that suppressing the rate of severe accidents requires changing the attitude toward workplace safety in general. By creating a culture that values safety, empowers individuals, and strives to continuously improve, accident rates can be suppressed across the full range of severities.
AB - The occurrence of workplace accidents is described within the context of self-organized criticality, a theory from statistical physics that governs a wide range of phenomena across physics, biology, geosciences, economics, and the social sciences. Workplace accident data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal a power-law relationship between the number of accidents and their severity as measured by the number of days lost from work. This power-law scaling is indicative of workplace accidents being governed by self-organized criticality, suggesting that nearly all workplace accidents have a common underlying cause, independent of their severity. Such power-law scaling is found for all labor categories documented by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our results provide scientific support for the Heinrich accident triangle, with the practical implication that suppressing the rate of severe accidents requires changing the attitude toward workplace safety in general. By creating a culture that values safety, empowers individuals, and strives to continuously improve, accident rates can be suppressed across the full range of severities.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.physa.2018.04.064
DO - 10.1016/j.physa.2018.04.064
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046334514
SN - 0378-4371
VL - 506
SP - 284
EP - 289
JO - Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
JF - Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
ER -