Advanced Safety Management, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 4ESSENTIALS FOR THE PRACTICE OF SAFETY

Creation in 2018 of a Council of Academic Affairs and Research at the American Society of Safety Professionals gives encouragement with respect to the possible development of an agreement on the essentials for the practice of safety. To be recognized as a profession, the practice of safety must have a sound theoretical and practical base which, if applied, will be effective in hazard avoidance, elimination, or control, in achieving acceptable risk levels, and in reducing the occurrence of events that result in harm or damage to people, property, or the environment.

Safety professionals take a variety of approaches in the advice they give to decision-makers and the advice is based on substantively different premises. They can't all be right or equally effective. On two previous occasions, this author wrote what he thought were the theoretical and practical bases for the practice of safety. In this third attempt, a markedly different approach is taken because of what has been learned.

This chapter presents general principles, statements, and definitions that are believed to be at the core of what safety professionals should be taught and be at the base of what they do. Surely, there can be debate on what is presented here and additions or deletions. This presentation is not complete.

But it is a certainty—the practice of safety will not be recognized as a profession until the people involved agree on a generic base for what they ...