Work-Related Accidents Among the Iranian Population: A Time Series Analysis, 2000–2011 Publisher Pubmed



Karimlou M¹ ; Salehi M² ; Imani M³ ; Hosseini AF⁴ ; Dehnad A⁵ ; Vahabi N⁶ ; Bakhtiyari M⁷
Source: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Published:2015

Abstract

Background: Work-related accidents result in human suffering and economic losses and are considered as a major health problem worldwide, especially in the economically developing world. Objectives: To introduce seasonal autoregressive moving average (ARIMA) models for time series analysis of work-related accident data for workers insured by the Iranian Social Security Organization (ISSO) between 2000 and 2011. Methods: In this retrospective study, all insured people experiencing at least one work-related accident during a 10-year period were included in the analyses. We used Box–Jenkins modeling to develop a time series model of the total number of accidents. Results: There was an average of 1476 accidents per month (1476.05±458.77, mean±SD). The final ARIMA (p,d,q) (P,D,Q)s model for fitting to data was: ARIMA(1,1,1)×(0,1,1)12 consisting of the first ordering of the autoregressive, moving average and seasonal moving average parameters with 20.942 mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). Conclusions: The final model showed that time series analysis of ARIMA models was useful for forecasting the number of work-related accidents in Iran. In addition, the forecasted number of work-related accidents for 2011 explained the stability of occurrence of these accidents in recent years, indicating a need for preventive occupational health and safety policies such as safety inspection. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014.