ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the basic methods of analyzing the safety health of an organization. It provides a brief overview of tools available to analyze qualitative and quantitative safety data. The chapter also describes the human subjects concerns that need to be addressed in research projects that solicit survey data, error reports, and interviews. It discusses the various types of data that are collected by maintenance organizations and how they may be used to reduce the number of accidents. The chapter explores issues related to confidentiality of such data and the roles of various stake-holders in achieving systemic improvements. The data types can be classified into the following categories: performance data, event investigation data, and intervention program effectiveness data. As the aviation maintenance community strives to minimize maintenance errors through better data collection and analysis, it is imperative to understand the ethics of data collection, the validity of the data, and the reliability of the analyses.
