Search results

This paper analyzes the impact of obesity on the probability of a motor vehicle fatality (highway death rate) and on its component probabilities: the probability of a fatality, given a crash (vulnerability rate) and the probability of a crash (crash rate).

Using state-level data for 1995–2015, the paper estimates models explaining all three rates. Explanatory factors include obesity and a representative set of potential determinants.

Results indicate that obesity has a statistically significant positive relationship with the highway death rate and the crash rate. Also having a statistically significant positive association with at least one of the three rates are the proportions of young and old drivers, alcohol consumption, the ratio of rural to urban vehicle miles and temperature. Factors with a statistically significant negative relationship with at least one of the rates include primary seat belt laws and precipitation. In 2016, a total of 928 traffic fatalities could have been avoided if obesity rates decreased by one percentage point.

Seat belts and crash dummies should be better designed to fit and represent those with higher BMIs, and education efforts to increase seat belt use should be supplemented with information about the adverse impact of obesity on highway safety.

This paper uses 21 years of state-level information, including socio-economic and regulation data, and contributes to the existing research on the relationship between obesity and highway safety.

Compares accident injuries and fatalities occurring during a one‐year Michigan emergency response study (MERS) with figures for the state’s general population accidents over three and five years. Finds that significantly higher rates of accidents occur in pursuits than in the general population or in police non‐pursuit experience but that the MERS fatal accident rate was not significantly higher than in the general population. Suggests that this is partly explained by officers having the advantage of defensive driving training and by a Hawthorne effect; also alcohol consumption is a common factor in general accidents. Points out that non‐fatal injuries were significantly higher than comparable groups. Advocates the establishment of a database built on a mandatory police pursuit reporting system.

Accidents, injuries and fatalities resulting from state police pursuits conducted during the Michigan Emergency Response Study (MERS) were compared with non‐pursuit police accidents and three‐ and five‐year means of general population accidents to examine the relative dangerousness of the police pursuits under varying light conditions. The Michigan State Police troopers, who were asked to complete a survey instrument each time a pursuit was conducted during the survey period of June 1991 through May 1992, reported 197 pursuits, 65 accidents with 30 injuries and one fatality. Pursuit accidents were significantly more likely to occur during the hours of darkness than the three comparable groups; however, pursuit injury accidents were more likely to occur during daylight and darkness, but not so during the hours of dusk and dawn. Significant differences in fatalities were not found during daylight, dawn or dusk, but the pursuit fatality rate was higher during darkness when compared with the three groups. Examines accident, injury and fatality rates of previous studies in the review of the literature. Overall, several similarities existed among the studies regardless of the number of pursuits reported.

The purpose of this study is to determine the proportion of the population that will be susceptible to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the proportions of infections, recoveries and fatalities from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The design was a longitudinal survey of COVID-19 infections, recoveries and fatalities in Nigeria using the data on the daily updates of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control for the period 1 May to 23 August 2020. Markov chain analysis was performed on the data.

The results showed that in the long run, 8.4% of the population will be susceptible to COVID-19 infections, 26.4% of them will be infected, 61.2% of the infected will recover and 4% will become fatal. Thus, if this pattern of infections and recoveries continue, the majority of the infected people in Nigeria will recover whilst a very small proportion of the infected people will die.

A dearth of the extant literature on the problem, especially from the management science perspective.

Results of the study will facilitate policymakers’ response to the curtailment of the pandemic in Nigeria.

Curtailing the pandemic through the results of this study will assist in easing the social consequences of the pandemic.

The proposed adjustment to the susceptibilities, infections and recoveries model through the introduction of a fourth state (fatality) to get the susceptibilities, infections, recoveries and fatalities model, signalling a point of departure from previous studies.

This study aims to examine the role of safety governance in ensuring public–private interface ecosystems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to highlight the role of safety governance in the complex interfaces of pandemic response mechanisms. The analysis is conducted at the national level, considering safety governance issues in terms of test, confirmed cases, fatality rates, vaccination rate, medical capabilities, Information and communications technology capability, Hofstede’s cultural index (individualism and power distance scores), public safety, personal privacy and national health capabilities.

Using multigovernance theory and technology, organization and environment theory, the authors present a research model that defines four independent factors and country level performance outcomes and conducted analysis of variance tests.

Research findings suggest that countries are classified by diverse groups using multiple criteria (e.g. country size, Hofstede’s cultural indexes, ICT capabilities and Governance index). Countries indicate differences in their policy approaches according to their private and public ecosystems. COVID-19 response performance indicators are substantially different.

This study provides the relevance of the multigovernance theory. The empirical results suggest that effective crisis governance is characterized by vertically integrated organizational hierarchies with horizontally connected communication channels that seek maximum voluntary participation and a high level of motivation of informed societal members as a whole. Crisis events occur occasionally, and livelihood routines demonstrate incredible human agility. Gaining insight of the findings from this article may be useful to respond to future crisis events.

This significant study highlights the political and social factors that define response patterns of different countries regarding COVID-19 response mechanisms. With the wide vaccination administration, the COVID-19 landscape shows differences in these countries. This study is rare in providing research framework using Hofstede cultural value and examines with actual data provided by each national government, World Health Organization and credible information sources.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literature pertaining to occupational health disparities experienced by Latino immigrant workers in the USA and to advance a general framework based on systems science to inform epidemiological and intervention research.

Using papers and other sources from 2000 to the present, the authors examined the employment conditions and health outcomes of Latino immigrant workers and critically analyzed the pervasive evidence of health disparities, including causal mechanisms and associated intervention programs.

The occupations, including the work environment and resultant living conditions, frequently performed by Latino immigrants in the USA represent a distinct trigger of increased injury risk and poor health outcomes. Extant intervention programs have had modest results at best and are in need of more comprehensive approaches to address the complex nature of health disparities.

An integrated, systems-based framework concerning occupational health disparities among Latino immigrant workers allows for a holistic approach encompassing innovative methods and can inform high-leverage interventions including public policy.

Reductionist approaches to health disparities have had significant limitations and miss the complete picture of the many influences. The framework the authors have provided elucidates a valuable method for reducing occupational health disparities among Latino immigrant workers as well as other populations.

American police trace their initial brush with handgun training to efforts taken by New York City in 1895. Developing proficiency did not become a widely held priority until beginning in the mid‐1920s when the reform era’s focus upon training understandably led them to desire being not just trained, but “qualified” with their handguns. Qualification is a military‐derived status introduced in large part by the National Rifle Association’s police firearms training programme between the two World Wars. Today, as then, formal qualification expectations imply that officers exceeding various minimum performance levels are competent to employ handguns during armed confrontations. An examination of police field marksmanship in armed confrontations ‐ within the context of firearms training developments, the nature of and role played by “qualification”, and the basis for threshold scores ‐ suggests otherwise.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze trends in fatal law enforcement officer (LEO) traffic collisions and describes prior research approaches and industry responses. It reviews the issue from historical and contemporary perspectives and details its problems for public policy.

Descriptive statistics are applied to data primarily covering the period 1995 to 2010 contained in the Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime in the USA and LEO Killed and Assaulted reports and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System database. Trends are established and comparisons are offered between groups.

Traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for LEOs. Traffic fatalities in the general public have steadily decreased in past decades. This has not been the trend among LEOs. This issue has been studied from several disciplinary perspectives in the social, cognitive, biological, engineering, and natural sciences. While the law enforcement industry has documented the trend, concerted efforts to mitigate the issue have been limited until recently.

Law enforcement practitioners and policymakers should take note of research findings and pursue training, policy, and practice changes to limit LEO traffic fatalities and effect an improvement trend consistent with the national reduction in highway deaths.

This paper brings together previously uncoupled data sources and prior research to identify problematic trends and contextualize LEO traffic fatalities as a subset of all traffic fatalities. It provides law enforcement policymakers a stark and revealing assessment of the most dangerous aspect of their field.

The purpose of this research is to focus on the serious but under‐examined incidence of fatalities and injuries among rail trackworkers. It identifies the pressures on trackwork, locating them within an analysis of the economic structure of the privatised rail industry and illustrates the consequences of these pressures at the operational level.

A series of semi‐structured interviews was held with management representatives of the infrastructure and maintenance companies, rail safety bodies and officials and representatives of the RMT. These were supplemented by focus‐group style discussions with track maintenance workers in Scotland and the North of England. The paper then relates these qualitative data to the analysis of recent major incidents which have involved fatalities of rail employees.

Within the structure of the post‐privatised industry, improvements to the safety regime are always in danger of being constrained by countervailing economic and organisational pressures. There is a marked discrepancy between the higher level safety structure and the experience of employees at track level.

There is virtually no workforce input into the construction of safety procedures despite the fact that rail workers' commitment to the industry represents a large untapped resource for safety improvement.

The rail industry in general, and trackwork in particular, have been conspicuously under‐researched since privatisation.

The construction industry contributes significantly to national economic growth and offers substantial opportunities for job creation; however, the industry has continually been plagued by workplace accidents. Moreover, employers may not realize the economic magnitude of workplace injury and ill health arising from construction activities. These accidents represent a considerable economic and social burden to employers, employees and to the society as a whole. Despite governments and organisations worldwide maintaining an ongoing commitment towards establishing a working environment free of injury and disease, a great deal of construction accidents continues to frequent our society. The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of a sample of 100 construction accident reports to establish, as far as practically reasonable, the total costs of limited types of construction accidents. Costs attributable to each of these accidents were classified either as direct or indirect costs. Through an exhaustive and time-consuming investigation of all available records from various sources and/or kept in various departments, the individual costs were correlated to the various direct and indirect categories.

This particular study is a combination of explanatory and collective case study approaches, whereby causal effects are determined or a course of events is examined from multiple cases. The preferred form of data collection is left to the researcher to decide (Yin, 2003). When a researcher is considering “how” or “why” questions, a contemporary set of events using primary and secondary documents, over which the researcher has little or no control, the case study approach is feasible (Yin, 2009).

The costs of construction accidents for the same sample of 100 construction analysed in this study has been estimated at a staggering R32,981,200. Of this total, R10,087,350 has been attributed to direct costs and R22,893,850 has been attributed to indirect costs. The costs of construction accidents are based on four cost components: sick pay, administrative costs, recruitment costs and compensation and insurance costs. It should be noted that the estimates of the costs to employers presented in this study are reflective of the activities and incidents of the reviewed organisation and may not necessarily represent another organisation. The costs of construction accidents values presented in this study reveal that construction accidents present a substantial cost to employers and to the society at large, inclusive of both the direct and indirect costs. It is therefore in the best interest of the employer to identify progressive and advanced approaches to more effectively manage construction health and safety, consequently society at large will benefit tremendously.

Given the high rate of construction accidents experienced, employers are not entirely mindful of the actual costs of construction accidents, especially when considering the hidden or indirect costs of accidents. Various safety research efforts have attempted to quantify the true costs of worker injuries; however, localised systematic information on cost of construction accidents at work is not readily available from administrative statistical data sources; therefore, this study was carried out to estimate the costs, like lost workdays or lost income, are clearly visible and can readily be expressed in monetary value; for a large part,0 however, economic consequences of accidents are somewhat hidden.