Accident Causation Theory

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Accidents is defined as an unplanned and undesired circumstances resulting in injuries, fatalities and loss or damage of property or assets(safety.ILO, 2011). Accidents are much deeper and beyond the older clichés, accounting to bad luck or fate, almighty’s work or simply being at wrong place at wrong time. But, in todays scientific world it is neither perceived as fate nor as deity’s work but a social problem resulting from a chain of undesired events. Preventing accidents is very arduous task without knowledge of accident phenomenon and the study in the field of accident phenomenon has been very diverse but a basic question has always been raised as why does accident occur? Can there be some common pattern to it? To unravel these mysteries and predict and prevent accidents several theories and model has been postulated in the past and recent times with each having some explanatory and predictive values.

Some of the major theories are:

• Domino theory

• Human factor theory

• Accident/incident theory

• Epidemiological theory

• Systems theory

• Energy release theory

• Behavior theory

• Swiss cheese theory

• Drug and accident causation

• Management failure and accident causation

(SafetyInstituteofAustralia, 2012)

Domino theory

Heinrich’s version of Domino theory was one of the earliest proposed Domino theory on accident causation model by W.H.Heinrich in 1931. He described accident as an multifactorial chain of discrete events and presented a series of dominoes and exhibit how series of dominoes topples simultaneously when one of them tumbles down. He proposed sequence of 5 factors that would prompt the next step of toppling the dominos lined up in a row (HW Heinrich, 1980). The sequence is 1.inju...

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...events in acute care.

Oakley, J. S. Using Accident Theories to Prevent Accidents.

Rasmussen.J. (1997). RISK MANAGEMENT IN DYNAMIC SOCIETY:A MODELLING PROBLEM.

Reason, J. (2000). Human error: models and management. British Medical Journal.

safety.ILO, E. o. o. h. a. (2011). Theory of accident causes.

SafetyInstituteofAustralia. (2012). Models of Causation: Safety.

Salmon, P. M., Cornelissen, M., & Trotter, M. J. (2012). Systems-based accident analysis methods: A comparison of Accimap, HFACS, and STAMP. Safety Science, 50(4), 1158-1170.

U.S.NRC. (2014). Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident.

Underwood, P., & Waterson, P. (2014). Systems thinking, the Swiss Cheese Model and accident analysis: A comparative systemic analysis of the Grayrigg train derailment using the ATSB, AcciMap and STAMP models. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 68, 75-94.

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