HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLBEING A HEADS UP ON SAFETY
Recent research has revealed a lack of training and awareness in the sector around head injuries and their possible causes. Chris Tidy, a head injury expert at Mips, the Swedish helmet- based safety technology company, explains why the construction sector needs to better understand the risks.
Safety helmets and hard hats have been protecting people in one form or another for thousands of years. From their humble beginnings as battle armour in 2500BC to today where their use is much more widespread, they have stood the test of time.
We’ve all seen the headlines about head injuries in sport: Football players heading the ball, rugby players, NFL players, boxing head injuries, all leading to potentially severe cases and long-term issues. But most of us face the risk of head injury in work, as well as in play. Some face this risk more than others, like those who work within the construction industry, facilities management and utilities sectors.
The Mips® Safety System is designed to help reduce rotational motion to the head caused by certain angled impacts. A low-friction layer inside the safety helmet allows multi-directional movement of 10-15mm on certain angled impacts, intended to help reduce rotational force to the head.
“Less than a third (27%) of survey participants were correct in answering that up to 75% of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) cases result in a concussion.”
On modern-day building sites, there is widespread awareness of the need to wear a hard hat, but the results of a recent survey show a clear majority think that not enough is being done to inform the workforce of the specific risks around head injury.
Concussion is often referred to as mild head injury and while most mild head injuries result in no long-term damage to the brain, it can cause temporary disruption to brain function that can last for a matter of hours to days, weeks or even months. A recent survey of CIOB members undertaken by Mips and Construction Management revealed that less than a third (27%) of survey participants were correct in answering that up to 75% of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) cases result in a concussion. The rest
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thought the proportion was lower than this. In fact, the most common type of TBI is concussion, which accounts for up to 75% of all TBI cases.
Reporting and risk The reason for this is perhaps because the industry reports on accidents and not injuries, hence why the injury portion is inaccurate. It would be better if more emphasis were placed on the exact injury information, and this was logged in detail. We could then understand the injuries more and help to mitigate them.
Just over half (51%) of respondents don’t think enough is being done to inform the workforce of the risks around head injury. In order to prevent head injuries onsite we must first understand the risk. This will involve educating the supply chain and changing the whole industry perspective. There are a lot of accident records and statistics available online, however, the interpretation of these is key to understanding and evaluating the risk.
For all of us, accident reporting and statistics provide insights to help us elevate the issue of better head protection for the world’s safety helmet/hard hat wearers. It allows us to constantly challenge the status quo and push technical boundaries to achieve better protection, sending us home safely to our loved ones every day.
Our most valuable asset to protect is our head because that is the bit that works everything else. If something happens to that, then there may be serious implications including anything from brain injury to death. Through accident reporting and statistics, we can gain further understanding on how injuries are caused and therefore how we can prevent them.
Statistics are only one part of the equation. As an industry, we must continue to analyse and question statistics so that we can address the issues that have the biggest impact on wearer safety. Despite the widespread and mostly mandatory use of hard hats, construction and industrial workers are still at risk for severe head injuries including concussion. They can suffer concussions from the impact force from a slip, trip or fall, as well as from falling objects.
We know that in 2018/19 in the UK there were 16 fatal injuries involving being struck by a moving or flying/falling object, but we do not know which ones involved a head injury. We know there were 749 incidents in the UK 2018/19 where a loss of consciousness was caused by a head injury or asphyxia, but how many were caused specifically by a head injury? We know that more head injuries occur from slips, trips and falls from the same level or one level above
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