Prevention through design
Prevention through design (PtD), also called safety by design usually in Europe, is the concept of applying methods to minimize occupational hazards early in the design process, with an emphasis on optimizing employee health and safety throughout the life cycle of materials and processes. It is a concept and movement that encourages construction or product designers to "design out" health and safety risks during design development. The process also encourages the various stakeholders within a construction project to be collaborative and share the responsibilities of workers' safety evenly. The concept supports the view that along with quality, programme and cost; safety is determined during the design stage. It increases the cost-effectiveness of enhancements to occupational safety and health. Compared to traditional forms of hazard control, PtD possesses a proactive nature whereas other safety measures are reactive to incidences that occur within construction projects. This method for reducing workplace safety risks lessens workers' reliance on personal protective equipment, which is the least effective of the hierarchy of hazard control. Each year in the U.S., 55,000 people die from work-related injuries and diseases, 294,000 are made sick, and 3.8 million are injured. The annual direct and indirect costs have been estimated to range from 155 billion. For U.S. industries such as construction, even though construction personnel account for only 5% of the total U.S. workforce, they are responsible for nearly 20% of all workplace fatalities. Recent studies in Australia indicate that design is a significant contributor to 37% of work-related fatalities; therefore, the successful implementation of prevention through design concepts can have substantial impacts on worker health and safety. A safer workplace can be created by removing hazards and reducing worker risks to an appropriate level "at the source," or as early in the life cycle of products or workplaces as possible.