A development of HSE risk assessment method in order to establishment an Emergency Action Plan in academic settings

Background and Aim: The occurrence of emergencies and disasters has indicated an increasing trend globally. Frequent fatal and serious accidents have been reported in Iranian academic institutions in recent years. The aim of this research is to establish the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) based on assessing Health, Safety, Environment (HSE) hazards to mitigate the harmful consequences at time of major incidences.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2018 at School of Public health in Damghan, Semnan University of Medical Sciences. We developed a risk assessment method for assessing HSE hazards.A 3- step procedure was conducted including identify hazards, decide who may be harmed and how and the risk evaluation. A checklist was used to collect data for 39 different sites. Finally, the quantified risks were prioritized and control measures proposed accordingly. The descriptive (Percent and Mean) and analytical statistical tests (Chi-square, Correlation, Friedman and Kruskal-wallis) were used for analyzing data by SPSS software, version 22.Results: The frequency of first and second risk levels were 3.4% and 75.8%, respectively. This indicated the acceptable risks and corrective measures should be done in the future, if necessary. However, 18.9% and 0.7% of identified risks were at third and fourth risk levels, respectively. Thus corrective measures should be considered as soon as possible and immediately for these risk groups. The type of hazard had significant relation with the sites. Similarly, risk severity was significantly related to the sites (p-value < 0.05). Also, the type of hazard was significantly associated with total risk score (p-value < 0.01). Safety hazards had a statistically higher contribution to total risk score when compared to health and environmental hazards.Conclusion: Our results suggested the requirements for providing the safety committee, training program of emergencies and disasters for faculties, staff and students. Provisions must be taken concerning the non-structural mitigation and evacuation plan.

Keywords:

Emergency , risk assessment , Action plan , Academic institutions