ABSTRACT
Prevailing wisdom suggests that many job-related injuries are accidents and, therefore, not preventable, even as evidence to the contrary continues to mount. Death and injury rates remain high. For instance, in the United States alone, deaths from work-related injuries occur about every fifty minutes, and injuries occur every eighteen seconds (National Safety Council, 1991). The costs of these incidents in terms of human suffering are incalculable. Financial losses have been estimated to exceed $119.4 billion, including wage and productivity losses of almost $60 billion (National Safety Council, 1996). This chapter describes the unique contribution that management practices derived from the science and technology of behavior analysis can make toward reducing such injuries through promoting safe practices on the job.
