2. Main analysis and survey methods

The process of investigating and analyzing health and safety events can be oriented differently, depending on the issues, objectives and context of the organization. The following sections present the methods most commonly used in industry to exploit feedback, in an order of increasing sophistication that should respond to the perceived complexity of the problem to be addressed.

In practice, the choice is often linked to the nature of the damage suffered. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, while a highly visible event in terms of its impact - be it financial, legal or in terms of image - demands that we dwell on the issue to ensure its non-recurrence, there is not the same pressure to analyze "small incidents". Secondly, given the sheer volume of such incidents (Bird's pyramid), risk situations and near-accidents are often analyzed summarily, whereas the few...