Delphi assessment of occupational hazards in the wineries of Andalusia, in southern Spain

BACKGROUND - According to recent theories on entrepreneurial finalism, profit must be combined with other aspects that define company objectives. Three aspects that should be considered together have been identified: • financial performance; • competitive performance; • social performance. Given the synergy between these three aspects, there is an evident need to also include occupational health and safety (OHS) among company objectives; indeed, OHS has a direct and indirect effect on the achievement of company objectives. OBJECTIVES - The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact that the introduction of Legislative Decree 626/94 has had on company management in order to understand whether safety actions have assumed strategic importance within the management process. The need for safety is one of the fundamental factors of trade union demands on working conditions, it is the basis of the social need to eliminate or mitigate the hazards of tasks.

Keywords: accident automotive maintenance injury occupational safety workshop a b s t r a c t Background: To analyze the effects of the factors associated with different types of injury (superficial wounds, dislocations and sprains, bone fractures, concussion and internal injuries, burns scalding and freezing) caused by occupational accidents in automotive repair workshops. Methods: Study of a sample consisting of 89,954 industry accidents reported from 2003 to 2008. Odds ratios were calculated with a 95% confidence interval. Results: Belonging to a small company is a risk factor for suffering three of the five types of injury studied. Women are less likely to suffer burns and superficial wounds, and more likely to suffer dislocations or sprains. Foreign workers are more likely to suffer concussion and internal injuries. Conclusion: Health and safety strategies and accident prevention measures should be individualized and adapted to the type of worker most likely to be injured in each type of accident. Occupational health and safety training courses designed according to worker profile, and improving the participation of the workers in small firms creating regional or roving safety representatives would improve working conditions.

Data in Brief, 2018

Obtaining data on worker accident rates is necessary in order to analyze the causes and variables involved in the occurrence of said accidents. The majority of these data, collected after the accident occurs, do not consider the employee's working conditions. Here are presented the data on workplace accidents and the conditions of the workers by analyzing the generic data supplied as part of the 7th National Survey of Workplace Conditions (EWCS) in Spain, conducted in 2011. These data will yield the variables needed to determine if the information on workplace risks provided by the survey respondents has an appreciable effect on the occurrence of occupational accidents in the working population, and will also be used to explore other variables.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021

Occupational accidents in the Spanish mining industry have been substantially reduced over the last decades. However, the incidence rate shows higher values than other leading mining countries. In this regard, the research carried out reveals the factors influencing the high incidence rates of the Spanish mining sector, based on three scenarios: underground mining (UG), quarries and open pit mining (OP) and mineral processing plants (PP). The three most common types of accident for each scenario have been determined, considering the accidents in Spain between 2009 and 2018. The analysis also includes the main deviations, and physical activities that the injured worker was carrying out at the time of the accident. Besides, a model to predict the number of accidents based on the lost working days is also presented together with the incidence and severity risk index adjusted by the number of employees and their worked hours, respectively, in each scenario. These finding can be relevant...

Integrating risk assessment in an organization is a process that generally follows a sequence of phases. To be effective, the company culture must be willing to embrace the risk assessment process, and cultural acceptance stems from management leadership. Emphasizing some of the major benchmarks in occupational risk assessment approaches, the paper summarizes and outlines several basic principles directed towards practical risk assessment process improvement. The article discusses the principles that underlie a coherent and efficient assessment for occupational health, safety and well-being: the need of a global approach of these problems not only at the workplace but for the whole of the living conditions at work; a clear understanding of the complementary character between the different partners of this prevention; the role of actor of the workers and therefore the absolute necessity of a participative approach; the real usefulness of measurements and of risk quantification in general; the differences between risk assessment and risk management. The paper demonstrates how a sound risk assessment approach can lead not only to better risk management, but to the pro-active prediction of occupational risk accidents and incidents and ultimately its prevention.

Organizations should regularly conduct an assessment of their occupational hazards in order to design and implement preventive measures that are necessary and sufficient to deal with the level of risk, the costs of prevention and the safety at levels considered acceptable by the organization. Furthermore, the selection of measures to be implemented in an organization should take into account both internal and external costs. Externalities are of great importance in terms of the costs of accidents at work; nevertheless, they are not often properly addressed by the organizations. In this paper we describe an application of the Delphi method to understand how externalities can be included in Occupational Safety and Health.

Sustainability

European legislation stipulates the obligation to carry out a risk assessment for each job, as well as the application of measures to prevent these occupational risks. Therefore, taking into account the importance of risk determination at the workplace for the prevention of work accidents and occupational diseases, this paper proposes the digitization of a risk assessment method. The application of the occupational injury and illness risk assessment method begins with a document that contains a description of the company (name, location, domain of activity, organization chart, etc.), a description of the work system detailing its components and a brief description of the assessment method. Next follows a Microsoft Excel document that performs the actual application of the method. Finally, another document presents the list of measures that lead to the implementation of the prevention and protection plan. This paper presents the code design of the Microsoft Excel document, an essenti...

2014

Methods and background: This review has done a comparison of the 3 types of workplace in the Spanish mining sector. The 3 workplaces considered are: mines, quarries and mineral processing plants. The 10 most frequent accidents and deviations have been obtained for each one. It has also been calculated the annual incidence, frequency, average duration and severity indexes as well as the risk index for each one. Besides, the accident distribution has been modelling, based on exponential distribution function of the lost days in the 3 workplaces mentioned. Results: The main sort of accident is due to physical overexertion and the principal deviation is the material collapsing from the roof of the mines, no coordinate movements in quarries and body movements because of physical overexertion in mineral processing plants.

Journal of Agricultural Engineering, 2009

Safety Science, 2009

This paper focuses on the causes of accidents at work in the Food Industry Sector and it covers both immediate and systemic causation factors, using data collected in Portugal. In the first part, accident data is analysed by looking at harmonised variables within the Eurostat recording system, allowing a portrait of the accidents occurred and their immediate causes. To complement the study, a second part was designed to deepen the insight into underlying factors, as well as the relevant organisational conditions; this complementary part comprised an in-depth analysis of 30 accidents, carried out in the field by visiting several enterprises of the sector and conducting interviews with the injured people and their managers. For eliciting and analysing this information, the WAIT method was applied together with its classification schemes. The results are presented and discussed, showing the usefulness of certain new Eurostat variables, such as the deviation and the contact. However, they also demonstrate that the current variables are not yet sufficient to clarify accident mechanisms on which to build up knowledge and develop better prevention strategies. The authors argue for the need of more detailed information and propose an additional variable, associated with the deviation, aimed at promoting the inclusion of specific underlying factors within the local workplace environment.

2015

To reduce occupational accidents and diseases, as well as physical and financial losses associated to them, regulations in several countries require risk assessment. However, the difficulty of carrying out the risk assessment was reported by several companies. The present work proposes a method of risk assessment inspired by methods from the literature, and introduces staff competence as a parameter of risk assessment. It also presents the results from a case study of a scientific research center in Morocco. The chemical synthesis laboratory is identified as the laboratory with the highest risk score. Risks related to the handling of chemicals, fire risk and risks related to pressure equipment and fluids are successively risks whose scores are the highest in the whole center and are present in the chemical synthesis lab.

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work eBooks, 2017

Acknowledgement: TNO wants to express its thanks to Eurostat and Eurofound for providing free access to their data on working conditions from the LFS 2013 ad hoc module and the 6th EWCS. Access to the data from the 6th EWCS was provided even before the data were officially published. We also want to express our thanks to Maarit Vartia-Väänänen and Krista Pahkin (FIOH), Epp Kalaste and Janno Jarve (Centar), Inigo Isusi (IKEI) and David McDaid (LSE) for valuable comments during the project as external experts. This report was commissioned by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of EU-OSHA. More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu). Cataloguing data can be found on the cover of this publication.

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2014

This paper aims at presenting the evolution of process safety in Spain from various points of view. In first place, a study of the accidents occurred in this country in the process industry and in the transportation of chemical substances is presented. After this, the starting point of the process safety research in Spain and its evolution during the years are explained. The importance of this topic has also been reflected in the chemical engineering studies in some Spanish universities. Therefore, the current status of the studies on process safety in Spain is analyzed in this paper. A section has also been devoted to the process safety in the Spanish industry. An analysis of the related legislation and its implementation in the Spanish process industry is also presented in this paper. Finally, the professional career of Prof. Joaquim Casal, the pioneer in Spain in process safety and risk assessment, is summarized.

2020

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of occupational risk assessment as a tool for minimizing workplace accidents. Occupational health should aim at the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations, the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors that have adverse effect on their health. This paper was discussed under the following headings; concepts and definition of workplace hazards and accidents, causes of accidents in the workplace, types of workplace accidents, occupational risk assessment as a tool for minimizing workplace accidents. Based on the findings the following recommendations were mad; workers should take reasonable care for their own safety and that of other persons who may be affected by their acts of omissions or commissions at work and also employers should carryout prompt and regular risk assessment programme in the working environment and also...