Prevention through Design (PtD): history and future.

To give you a history of the evolution of the Prevention through Design (PtD) concepts, upon which I will base suggestions for possible future activities, I commence with a review of how an Institute for Safety through Design was created at the National Safety Council. In the early 1990s, several safety professionals recognized, through their studies of investigational reports of occupational injuries and illnesses, that design causal factors were not adequately addressed. For example, a study I undertook at that time indicated that although there were implications of workplace and work method design inadequacies in over 35% of the investigational reports analyzed, the corrective actions proposed did not relate to the design implications. We also noted that designing for safety was inadequately addressed in the popular safety literature, and that safety and health management system guides infrequently included safety through design procedures. I chaired a committee at the National Safety Council to study the feasibility of the council promoting the idea of incorporating safety needs in the design process. The outcome, in 1995, was that the Council established The Institute for Safety through Design. An Advisory Committee for the Institute was formed, the members of which represented industry, academia, organized labor, and other interested persons. The mission of the Advisory Committee follows: