From Safety To Safety Science

How do accidents and disasters occur? How has knowledge of accident processes evolved? A significant improvement in safety has occurred during the past century, with the number of accidents falling spectacularly within industry, aviation and road traffic. This progress has been gradual in the context of a changing society. The improvements are partly due to a better understanding of the accident processes that ultimately lead to damage. This book shows how contemporary crises instigated the development of safety knowledge and how the safety sciences pieced their theories together by research, by experience and by taking ideas from other domains. From Safety to Safety Science details 150 years of knowledge development in the safety sciences. The authors have rigorously extracted the essence of safety knowledge development from more than 2,500 articles to provide a unique overview and insight into the background and usability of safety theories, as well as modelling how they developed and how they are used today. Extensive appendices and references provide an additional dimension to support further scholarly work in this field. The book is divided into clear time periods to make it an accessible piece of science history that will be invaluable to both new and experienced safety researchers, to safety courses and education, and to learned practitioners.

The book is designed as an accessible and readable introduction to a rapidly expanding area that is in demand worldwide. A variety of professionals from different backgrounds are being tasked with managing health and safety risks in a wide variety of settings. Many lack current and up-to-date knowledge of the key developments that have taken place in Safety Science in recent decades, as well as a sense of how these developments fit in with previous approaches. This book takes readers on a ‘journey’ across three broad developments in safety science. It covers topics that focus on the individual including human error, risk and the role of cognition in human performance. It then shifts to research in safety science that uses organizations as the basic unit of analysis, questions about organizational decision making and the characteristics that dispose towards or against organizational failure and it introduces perspectives based on systems science that address issues that arise out of complexity and interdependence. Those who will purchase this book are students taking courses in human factors, ergonomics, applied psychology, occupational health and safety management. Professionals working in safety management in any field from agriculture, construction, shipping, aviation, power generation, oil exploration, manufacturing to healthcare will find this book useful, as well as general readers interested in why systems fail.

Safety Science Research: Evolution, Challenges and New Directions provides a unique perspective into the latest developments of safety science by putting together, for the first time, a new generation of authors with some of the pioneers of the field. Forty years ago, research traditions were developed, including, among others, high-reliability organisations, cognitive system engineering or safety regulations. In a fast-changing world, the new generation introduces, in this book, new disciplinary insights, addresses contemporary empirical issues, develops new concepts and models while remaining critical of safety research practical ambitions. Their ideas are then reflected and discussed by some of the pioneers of safety science. Features Allows the reader to discover how contemporary safety issues are currently framed by a new generation of researchers, brought together for the first time Includes an introduction and guide to the development of safety science over the last four decades Features an extraordinary collection of expert contributors, including pioneers of safety research, reflecting the evolution of the discipline and offering insightful commentary on the current and future state of the field Serves as an invaluable reference and guide for safety professionals and students from any established disciplines such as sociology, engineering, psychology, political science or management as well as dedicated safety programmes Some figures in the eBook are in colour

How are today’s ‘hearts and minds’ programs linked to a late-19th century definition of human factors as people’s moral and mental deficits? What do Heinrich’s ‘unsafe acts’ from the 1930’s have in common with the Swiss cheese model of the early 1990’s? Why was the reinvention of human factors in the 1940’s such an important event in the development of safety thinking? What makes many of our current systems so complex and impervious to Tayloristic safety interventions? ‘Foundations of Safety Science’ covers the origins of major schools of safety thinking, and traces the heritage and interlinkages of the ideas that make up safety science today. Features Offers a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations of safety science Provides balanced treatment of approaches since the early 20th century, showing interlinkages and cross-connections Includes an overview and key points at the beginning of each chapter and study questions at the end to support teaching use Uses an accessible style, using technical language where necessary Concentrates on the philosophical and historical traditions and assumptions that underlie all safety approaches

For many years "safety technology" has constituted the essential instrument for the prevention of accidents as a direct result of handling new technology. Its awareness of the interactions prevalent in natural science causes safety technology to act on the basis of actual accidents, and it Ulilizes to their fullest extent any means provided by the engineering sciences. Man proceeds in a general direction towards preselVation and improvement, thus working towards the optimization of the technical design. However. a new set of basic problems presented itself the moment new large-scale technologies were introduced into the areas of processing, energy, and traffic, thereby creating a considerable amount of ad ditional danger potential. This also signified the end of an era when safety technology could be practiced chiefly on the basis of accident statistics. For ethical reasons it became necessary that a credible prognosis as to the type and effect of accidents took the place, or at least supplemented, the hitherto practiced purely reactive methods. The realization that the available means of safety technology were no longer sufficient in a highly technologized environment spurred the demand for entirely new concepts which would eventually lead to a higher degree of safety. A decisive step had to be taken away from a purely technical approach and fOwards and all-encompassing look at accident systems, because man had become aware of the fact that accidents will always be a part of the interaction between man, technology, and environment.

Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Fire Safety Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 8-12 July 1991.

In recent years, the costs of new drug development have skyrocketed. The average cost of developing a new approved drug is now estimated to be $1.3 billion (DiMasi and Grabowski, 2007). At the same time, each year fewer new molecular entities (NMEs) are approved. DiMasi and Grabowski report that only 21.5 percent of the candidate drugs that enter phase I clinical testing actually make it to market. In 2007, just 17 novel drugs and 2 novel biologics were approved. In addition to the slowing rate of drug development and approval, recent years have seen a number of drugs withdrawn from the market for safety reasons. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 10 drugs were withdrawn because of safety concerns between 2000 and March 2006 (GAO, 2006). Finding ways to select successful drug candidates earlier in development could save millions or even billions of dollars, reduce the costs of drugs on the market, and increase the number of new drugs with improved safety profiles that are available to patients. Emerging scientific knowledge and technologies hold the potential to enhance correct decision making for the advancement of candidate drugs. Identification of safety problems is a key reason that new drug development is stalled. Traditional methods for assessing a drug's safety prior to approval are limited in their ability to detect rare safety problems. Prior to receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, a drug will have been tested in hundreds to thousands of patients. Generally, drugs cannot confidently be linked to safety problems until they have been tested in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. With current methods, it is unlikely that rare safety problems will be identified prior to approval. Emerging Safety Science: Workshop Summary summarizes the events and presentations of the workshop.

Recent serious and sometimes fatal accidents in chemical research laboratories at United States universities have driven government agencies, professional societies, industries, and universities themselves to examine the culture of safety in research laboratories. These incidents have triggered a broader discussion of how serious incidents can be prevented in the future and how best to train researchers and emergency personnel to respond appropriately when incidents do occur. As the priority placed on safety increases, many institutions have expressed a desire to go beyond simple compliance with regulations to work toward fostering a strong, positive safety culture: affirming a constant commitment to safety throughout their institutions, while integrating safety as an essential element in the daily work of laboratory researchers. Safe Science takes on this challenge. This report examines the culture of safety in research institutions and makes recommendations for university leadership, laboratory researchers, and environmental health and safety professionals to support safety as a core value of their institutions. The report discusses ways to fulfill that commitment through prioritizing funding for safety equipment and training, as well as making safety an ongoing operational priority. A strong, positive safety culture arises not because of a set of rules but because of a constant commitment to safety throughout an organization. Such a culture supports the free exchange of safety information, emphasizes learning and improvement, and assigns greater importance to solving problems than to placing blame. High importance is assigned to safety at all times, not just when it is convenient or does not threaten personal or institutional productivity goals. Safe Science will be a guide to make the changes needed at all levels to protect students, researchers, and staff.