Relationship between a company's adequate response to near-misses and occupational accidents: a 1-year prospective cohort study.

Background: Near-misses in the workplace indicate potential safety hazards, and their adequate management is considered extremely important in preventing occupational accidents. However, the impact of a company's response to near-misses on the occurrence of subsequent accidents remains unclear. This study examined the relationship between the adequacy of a company's responses to near-misses and the occurrence of occupational accidents.

Methods: We conducted a 1-year prospective cohort study using an online self-administered questionnaire, targeting workers in Japan. The study included 2755 participants who had experienced and reported near-misses. We categorized company responses to these near-misses as adequate, inadequate, or no response. The outcome was the incidence of occupational accidents over the past year. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs using multilevel logistic regression adjusting for covariates.

Results: Among all participants, 59.0% were in the adequate response group, 30.1% were in the inadequate response group, and 10.8% were in the no response group. In the multivariate-adjusted model, the ORs of the inadequate response and the no response groups were 1.53 (95% CI, 1.25-1.88; P < .001) and 1.75 (95% CI, 1.32-2.33; P < .001), respectively.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that the adequacy of a company's response to near-misses reported by workers can be significantly related to the occurrence of subsequent occupational accidents. Companies need to thoroughly respond to near-misses reported by workers and adequately inform workers about the company's safety activities. This may lead to a reduction in the number of subsequent occupational accidents.