Foresight review on global safety evidence.

Suggested citation

Curran, A & Crowther, Y (2018) Foresight review on global safety evidence: towards a global safety outlook [online] Lloyd’s Register Foundation. Available at: https://www.lrfoundation.org.uk/en/publications 

Executive summary

This foresight review will further Lloyd’s Register Foundation's goal to establish a global safety evidence base to support decision making leading to enhanced safety of life and property. It draws on interviews and desk studies with an international range of experts from many sectors and with different perspectives.

The review gives example case studies of global data sets and how they are currently used. It considers where there are gaps and shortcomings in such data and highlights strengths and weaknesses in different approaches. Key learning points from the case studies include:

• Wide ranging variations in data quality and in the reliability of systems generating data at government, sector and company level exist, with some countries lacking any functioning systems for health and safety data collection and disclosure.
• Non-safety specific data sets can provide a critical context for safety, such as GDP, existence of regulatory and enforcement frameworks, transparency and the rigour of notification systems, investments in education and health outcomes.
• Industry best practice approaches use both lagging and leading indicators of health and safety performance, and improved data collection.
• Data on health and how health is managed is currently a focus for many businesses seeking to understand and track leading indicators of safety.
• There is a need to capture and understand data from weak signals, near misses and emerging patterns related to safety performance as well as intelligence from a smaller number of high impact, high profile catastrophes.
• There is value in using unstructured data and new analytical techniques to identify a range of health and safety performance indicators.
• Subject matter experts are important in interrogating and giving meaning to this increasingly rich and complex data landscape and the insights to be revealed about the safety of the world and the cultural contexts and drivers shaping safety outcomes.