ACCIDENT PREVENTION BY SAFETY ENGINEERS WITHIN OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH SERVICES IN SWEDEN

This paper is concerned with the work of safety engineers within Occupational Health Services (OHS) in Sweden, and focuses on their accident prevention activities. It is a review of a paper published in this journal two years previously. The paper provides a short summary of the results of the original study and then supplements the earlier data in two ways. First, extensive comparisons are made between the work of safety engineers and that of nurses and physiotherapists working in the same OHS units. In general, although there are both similarities and dissimilarities in the way in which they address the accident problem, the accident prevention work of all three occupational groups is limited in scope. Second, the role of safety engineers is considered in the light of the major changes in the nature of OHS in Sweden. Given forthcoming reductions in national government funding (amounting to a third of the current costs of the Services) and continued debate over the balance between prevention and rehabilitation, there has been speculation over the future role of the safety engineer. The paper treats safety engineers as a profession and views them as an important resource in the work of OHS. It concludes with some suggestions as to how this professional role might develop in the future, in particular in relation to accident prevention.