Guide to Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Work Injuries: How to show whether an intervention really works.

Abstract

Our aim in this book is to provide students, researchers and practitioners with the tools and concepts required to conduct systematic evaluations of injury prevention initiatives and safety programs. Successful evaluations will advance the discipline of occupational safety by building a body of knowledge, based on scientific evidence, that can be applied confidently in the workplace. This knowledge will provide a solid foundation for good safety practice, as well as inform the development of standards and regulations. Building such a knowledge base will help practitioners avoid the temptation of adopting safety procedures simply because they appear “intuitively obvious” when no scientific evidence actually exists for those practices.