Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Safety Science
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
32527
Funders
Edith Cowan University - Open Access Support Scheme 2021
Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP)
DMIRS Mines Safety Roadshow
Abstract
In ‘Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster’ Professor Michael Quinlan (2014) identified a series of ten common catastrophic incident risk factors, known as the Ten Pathways, contributing to major incidents in mining and other high hazard industries. This study applies the Quinlan methodology in two separate phases. The first phase of the study explored employee perception of employer effectiveness of fatality prevention against each of the Ten Pathways through a questionnaire of n = 2009 participants at the 2017–2019 Western Australian Government Mines Safety Roadshows. Respondents generally perceived their employer as having a relatively good understanding of the role of risk assessments and their importance in preventing injuries yet perceived their employers as generally ineffective in management system auditing. In the second phase of the study, 71 fatality reports on the Western Australian Government Department of Mines Fatalities register were assessed to identify the Ten Pathways involved in the fatality. The analysis identified fatalities typically included four or five of the Ten Pathways, although none of the investigations analysed all Ten Pathways. A combined assessment of employee perceptions of employer’s effectiveness at fatality prevention and pathways present in the Mines Fatalities register identified which Quinlan Ten Pathways mining organisations should prioritise for fatality prevention. It is recommended that benchmarking safety performance, incident investigations, and reviews of effectiveness of safety management systems include an examination and verification of the organisation’s response to Ten Pathways, a relatively straight forward task which may highlight latent issues or weaknesses that may otherwise remain undetected.
DOI
10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105494
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Emergency and Disaster Management Commons, Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene Commons
Comments
Jenke, T., Boylan, J. L., Beatty, S., Ralph, M., Chaplyn, A., Penney, G., & Cattani, M. (2022). Fatality risk management: Applying Quinlan’s ten pathways in Western Australia’s mining industry. Safety Science, 146, Article 105494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105494