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Safety

State of being protected from danger

  • 11 min read
  • 8 chapters
  • 6 labs on Lably
Arizona, poisonous snake warning sign. IMG_9619.JPG
Matt Frederick from USA · CC BY 2.0

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LabDisasters and SafetyLabSafety RulesLab · Class 3Safety at Home & SchoolLabSafety at Home and SchoolLabSafety RulesLab · Class 6–12AI & Python Builds (Medha AI)

Meanings

Etymology

The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 14th century. It is derived from Latin salvus, meaning uninjured, in good health, safe. via Middle English saufte, from Anglo-French salveté, saufté, from salf safe.

Definitions

The term is used often and in a wide range of contexts. Despite a popular impression that the meaning is well known and universally understood, there is no universally accepted definition. The assumption of common understanding is prevalent in standards, guidelines and dissertations, which do not provide a definition which might ensure that the use of the term in their specific context is unambiguous.

Definitions are generally based on community acceptance and understanding, so a given definition is not necessarily inherently better than another, and can illustrate a variety of different perspectives. It can be defined as the absence of risk and adverse incidents, or as the presence of a capability to defend against adverse events and mitigate their effects. The Oxford English Dictionary uses "freedom from danger and risks" and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as "the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss."

Other definitions of safety from the literature include:

  • The practice of eliminating or minimizing the probability of injury or death to personnel, damage to or loss of equipment or property, or loss of time.
  • "The preservation of positive value."
  • "Ability for a system to perform its intended purpose, whilst preventing harm to persons."
  • "A complex concept often defined by a particular condition. This condition denotes the absence of potential harm, including risks such as injury to individuals or animals, financial loss, or any other form of damage or loss".(Li and Guldenmund 2018, p. 95)
  • "The antonym of risk (the safety level is linked to the risk level; a high safety means a low risk and vice versa)".
  • "Application of hazard control through the workplace, person and system by integrating into the organization sustained actions, accountability and reducing risk to as low as reasonably practicable to mitigate potential injury."
  • "Zero harm"
  • "The condition where the number of adverse outcomes is as low as possible by trying to make sure things do not go wrong by eliminating the causes of malfunctions and hazards or by containing their effects."
  • "Freedom from risk which is not tolerable"
  • "A state of low risk: the lower the risk, the higher the safety."
  • "A state in which hazards and conditions leading to physical, psychological or material harm are controlled in order to preserve the health and well-being of individuals and the community."
  • "The ability of individuals or organizations to deal with risks and hazards so as to avoid damage or losses and yet still achieve their goals."

As an outcome, safety is an acceptable history of adverse events. As a target, safety involves proactive planning and strategies to minimise risk in a changing environment, while as an ongoing process, safety involves ensuring that people, environment and property will be protected in the current situation, and adverse incidents are mitigated when they occur.

Safety is the condition of a "steady state" of an organization or place doing what it is supposed to do. "What it is supposed to do" is defined in terms of public codes and standards, associated architectural and engineering designs, corporate vision and mission statements, and operational plans and personnel policies. For any organization, place, or function, large or small, safety is a normative concept. It complies with situation-specific definitions of what is expected and acceptable.

Using this definition, protection from a home's external threats and protection from its internal structural and equipment failures (see Meanings, above) are not two types of safety but rather two aspects of a home's steady state.

Security is the process or means, physical or human, of delaying, preventing, and otherwise protecting against external or internal, defects, dangers, loss, criminals, and other individuals or actions that threaten, hinder or destroy an organization's "steady state," and deprive it of its intended purpose for being.

Using this generic definition of safety it is possible to specify the elements of a security program.

Safety terminology

Acceptably safe
The safety objectives are deemed to be appropriate and the assessment carried out shows that the design can meet these objectives.
Reasonably practicable
Balanced between cost and benefit when considering the assessed risk.

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