Development and validation of a practical monitoring and assessment tool for injury prevention at workplaces. (PEROSH – MAT)
In January 2018, the new Joint PEROSH Research Project “MAT” has come into action. The kick-off meeting took place at the coordinators’ institute IFA in Germany. The other PEROSH project partners are INRS (France), AUVA (Austria), NFA (Denmark) and CIOP-PIB (Poland). The project will last for two years.
In 2013, almost 3.2 million accidents at work occurred in Germany. The related costs were compensated by the German statutory accident insurance with payments of approximately 890 million euros. Due to these immense costs and in order to mitigate these, the German Employer’s Liability Insurance Association for Wood and Metal (BGHM) developed a tool that is reliable and comprehensive in assessing the inherent OSH prevention culture of workplaces. MAT stands for Monitoring and Assessment Tool for injury prevention.
The need for comprehensive monitoring and assessment of safety and health conditions at workplaces and their inherent prevention potential led to the first version of a practical measurement tool being developed by a group of safety professionals at the German Social Accident Insurance. Key OSH elements were integrated into a prevention index, which is currently being trialled in the German woodworking and metalworking industries. This has delivered good results regarding reliability and validity in the German woodworking and metalworking industries.
MAT is based on the so-called TOP approach in preventing occupational accidents and injuries and diseases, namely: Technical measures (T), Organisational measures (O) and Personal measures (P). Based on these principles, four central questions were developed for each of the TOP domains. The strengths and weaknesses of the company’s safety and health arrangements can thus be determined in relation to these three aspects.
This project will consider whether MAT can be applied internationally.
In order for MAT to be tested and developed in multiple countries, workplaces in these countries are to be assessed using this tool. At the same time, information on occupational injuries has to be collected in order to check if there is a correlation between these and the outcomes of MAT. This will generate data that can be used to check the reliability and validity of MAT as a tool for the prevention of occupational accidents, injuries and diseases.
