Please share your thoughts regarding Heinrich's 88-10-2 ratio and its prevalence in your organization’s safety culture. Give examples of an “error provocative environment” from your own experience.

I guess this is a question form an exam of some sort? I did a study to show accidents followed a ratio more like 2 - 10 - 5 This shower clearly under reporting of near miss and hence a negative safety culture HSG48 is the place to go to answer part B :) http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/hsg48.pdf

The ratio varies greatly depending on the hazard. A colleague in ICI in 1970s did some research on our experience and as a result we broadly categorised our hazards into groups, which then affected how much effort we put into checking the quality of the supervisor's initial investigation. I was taught this as a new OSH adviser and found it very helpful. More recently I've used US Bureau of Labour data which categorises both fatalities and LTAs by 'hazard' to show how the ratios vary between, for example, falls on the level and falls from height. Interestingly the ratios for each category vary little from year to year, demonstrating the US working population is statisticly large enough for the results to be meaningful. FYI, the US average is about 210 LTAs per fatality, but for specific hazards can be from 1/10th to 20 times the average! Obviously there is no data for lesser injuries, as they aren't nationally reported.