Towards better prevention of fatal occupational accidents in Portugal

• Date: 01 September 2018
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Author: Júlio C. MENDES,António J. R. SANTOS,Efigénio L. REBELO
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12114

International Labour Review, Vol. 157 (2018), No. 3

Copyright © The authors 2018

Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2018

Towards better prevention of fatal

occupational accidents in Portugal

António J. R. SANTOS,* Efigénio L. REBELO**

and Júlio C. MENDES**

Abstract. Portugal, with a relatively high fatality rate for occupational accidents,

faces the challenge of reducing fatalities with limited funding. This research identi-

es signicant predictors in Portugal and estimates probabilities of occurrence. The

model, based on applied logistic regression, suggests that policy-makers should

focus prevention efforts on older workers; persons with permanent contracts; those

employed by large enterprises or at workplaces in the trade or services sectors;

and those exposed to deviations by overow, overturn, leak, ow, vaporization or

emissions that are likely to cause musculoskeletal disorders, wounds, fractures

or traumatic amputations.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) holds that work kills more

people than wars (ILO, 2005). Out of a global workforce of around

2.84 billion, every year about 2.4 million lives are lost owing to occupational

accidents and diseases (there are 270 million occupational accidents a year,

and they result in between 350,000 and 360,000 fatalities; some 2 million people

die from occupational diseases) (Hämäläinen, Leena Saarela and Takala,

2009; ILO, 2005; Takala et al., 2014). In the European Union (EU), in 2014

there were about 3.18 million work-related accidents involving four or more

calendar days of absence from work (corresponding to an incidence rate of

1,536.25 per 100,000 persons employed) and 3,739 fatal work-related accidents

(an incidence rate of 1.81 per 100,000).1

* ILO Budapest; at time of writing: Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve, and

Deputy Inspector General of the Portuguese Labour Inspectorate (Portuguese Authority for

Working Conditions – ACT), email: ajrobalo@gmail.com (corresponding author). ** Faculty of

Economics, University of Algarve, e-mails: elrebelo@ualg.pt, jmendes@ualg.pt.

Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and

publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

1 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Number_of_

non-fatal_and_fatal_accidents_at_work,_2014_(persons)_YB16.png [accessed 11 June 2018].

[Correction added on 6 November 2020, after initial online publication. A duplicate of

this article was published under the DOI 10.1111/ilr.12068, this duplicate has now been deleted

and its DOI redirected to this version of the article.]

410 International Labour Review

In Portugal, the numbers of fatal and non-fatal occupational accidents

and their incidence rates continue to be significantly higher than in most of

the 28 countries of the EU (EU-28). In 2014, Portugal had a fatal occupational

accident incidence rate (3.56 per 100,000) that was almost double the EU

average. For non-fatal accidents, it had the fifth largest number (130,153) and

the second highest incidence rate (2,892.6 per 100,000), which is around 88

per cent higher than the EU average.2 The Portuguese Authority for Working

Conditions (ACT) received reports of and investigated accidents in continental

Portugal that resulted in another 140 fatalities in 2015, 138 in 2016 and 119 in

20173 (ACT, 2017).

Over and above the tragic and profoundly damaging consequences

for the victims of these accidents and their families in human and financial

terms, such accidents also impose direct and indirect financial burdens on

employers and the State. The costs have been estimated as high as 4 per cent

of Gross National Product (GNP) (EU-OSHA, 1998; HSE, 2015; Takala et al.,

2014).

While the literature reviewed for this article was both diverse and of high

quality, it focused exclusively on the determinants of occupational accidents

in a given sector of activity or for a specific type of company, and none of

the studies in question addressed solely the predictors of fatal occupational

accidents in Portugal, as ours does. It is therefore our hope that this research

will begin to fill a void in the scientific literature. Our study is based on the

understanding that the most serious occupational accidents are those that

lead to fatalities, and that causality patterns differ between fatal and non-

fatal occupational accidents. Different prevention strategies should thus be

applied in order to ensure their effectiveness (a point made by Hale (2001) and

noted by Jacinto et al. (2007), in contrast with Heinrich (1931) and Bird and

Germain (1966), who had previously written that acting on common ground,

at the bottom of the “pyramid of accidents”, would prevent accidents from

happening at the top).

The main goal of this research thus consists in identifying the few variables

that best explain and predict the occurrence of fatal occupational accidents in

Portugal and that contribute most heavily, positively or negatively, to their

probability of occurrence. The identification of those variables, together with

the sign and the degree of their association with such accidents, are understood,

by reference to Ohmae (1982), to be truly critical factors that can help the

Portuguese authorities tackle this problem. In light of the scarcity of the

resources at their disposal and what is at stake, it is all the more important for

the authorities to concentrate on such factors in order to boost the efficiency

and effectiveness of their efforts.

2 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Number_of_non-

fatal_and_fatal_accidents_at_work,_2014_(persons)_YB16.png [accessed 11 June 2018].

3 ACT statistics on fatal work-related accidents, available at http://www.act.gov.pt/(pt-PT)/

CentroInformacao/Estatistica/Paginas/AcidentesdeTrabalhoMortais.aspx [accessed 14 June 2018].