Investigative Analysis of Safety Risk Assessment at a Science and Technology University: Analysis of 2019 Risk Assessment and 2021 Actual Accidents

Abstract

Our university has been conducting safety and health risk assessments in accordance with the Basic Health and Safety Policy established in 2005. In this context, a risk assessment of chemical substances has been in place. The implementation of chemical substance risk assessment became mandatory by Japanese law in FY 2016. At our university, the series of safety risk assessments has totaled approximately 6,500 cases. Of these, the most common damage predicted was “Fire” at around 16%, followed by “Burn” at about 13%, and “Chemical burn” at approximately 11%. Of the risk assessments in which “Fire” was the predicted damage, “Chemical substance” was the most frequently identified hazard. Specifically, around 40% of “Chemical substance” was “Flammable liquid”, about 30% was “Spontaneously combustible substance and water-prohibiting substance”, and approximately 9% was “Other hazardous material”. It should be noted that there was a negative association between the percentage of risk assessments performed and the percentage of actual accidents that occurred. That is, what is strongly recognized as a hazard in risk assessment tends to have fewer occurrences as an actual accident cause. As a rule, the identified hazard in the risk assessment and the main cause of the actual accident were consistent, and the risk assessment based on the assumption of several predictable types of damage from a single hazard could have been directly attributed to the prevention of actual accidents.