It’s easy to find a total of accident records and statistics online, however, the interpretation of these is key to understanding and evaluating the risk of head injuries.
We all know our most valuable asset to protect is our head. If something happens to that, then there may be serious implications including anything from brain injury to death. Through accident reporting and statistics, a further understanding can be gained on how injuries are caused and therefore how we can prevent them.
Accident reporting and statistics provide insights to help us elevate the issue of better head protection for the world’s safety helmet or hard hat wearers. It allows manufacturers to constantly challenge the status quo and push technical boundaries to achieve better protection.
One method that displays how accidents are viewed from a health and safety perspective are accident boards at building sites or factories. These boards highlight the number of days in which the last incident was reported e.g. ‘it’s been 238 days since our last reported accident’. However, there’s the chance that accidents may not be reported as individuals may not want to ruin the company’s accident record or statistic. Perhaps it should read ‘238 accidents reported in the last 3 years’ instead, for better reporting purposes.
The importance of statistics
Statistics are only one part of the equation. We must continue to analyse and question statistics so that we can address the issues that have the biggest impact on wearer safety.
To put the above into context, as much as 30% of head injuries in the UK and 50% of head injuries in Germany, occur from slips, trips and falls from the same level. We know that more head injuries occur from slips, trips and falls from the same level than being struck by an object, but the focus until recently has been on protecting heads against being struck by an object.
The safety helmet industry has spent a lot of time trying to understand the mechanisms that cause head injury, and as a result now know more about dropped objects than ever before. However, there is still limited information to understand how other head injuries are occurring and therefore how to protect against them.
We must continue to push for better, more detailed, accident reporting and statistics so that manufacturers can take the right steps to protect people. Focus on the areas that have the biggest impact on wearer safety, such as, concussion and rotational injury are things to be considered.
Concussion and rotational injuries
Concussion and rotational injuries are far more common than first thought. More than 50% of concussions go undiagnosed or detected, whilst 90% of diagnosed concussions do not involve a loss of consciousness. These are important statistics when considering how many have led to life changing injuries and costly litigations. Accident data and statistical analysis will help us to achieve a higher level of protection for the wearer, but only if we push for better data quality and use it to inform future product development.
A good example of the industry coming together to understand head injuries more is Hard Hat Awareness Week. One week set aside each year to educate wearers about head injuries and wear and care of the humble safety helmet/hard hat.