Spatial Analysis for Detecting Recent Work Accidents in Agriculture in Italy

Abstract

Work safety has been recently considered a growing topic in multi-disciplinary research across different working sectors, e.g. in open-field activities in agriculture. Precise guidelines and policy strategies are stimulated with the aim of providing a greater safety for operators and a more preliminary awareness of the potential risks. Computing work accidents is regularly achieved using classical approaches. However, it is difficult to quantify potential accidents or fatalities considering several factors (e.g. age of operators, their training experience but also environmental or geo-morphological characters). The paper focuses on recent work accidents (2012–2017) that occurred in the Italian agricultural sector. It classifies the accidents at work according to their severity (e.g. fatal, with/without permanent disabilities) and the way of occurrence (e.g. overturning of the tractor). One of the approaches used was based on the spatial analysis determining numerous suggestions, such as where and when injuries happened more often, the socio-demographic profile of the involved people (e.g. gender, age, nationality) and additional agricultural practices (e.g. mechanization processes applied). Revealing inherent patterns of safe (or unsafe) working conditions at the provincial scale (NUTS level 3 as designed by EUROSTAT), results showed that training or educational programs should be planned in specific areas with the purpose of increasing awareness toward risky events in agriculture. Future scenarios can be discovered based on explicit evidences dealing with risk factors and functioning conditions at various working sites with the final goal to launch appropriate technical, legislative and operational procedures to decrease work accidents.