Domestic and personal accidents - Prevention in the absence of professional supervision

This paper provides a review of a selection of recent papers, most of which derive from presentations given at the 4th World Conference on Injury Prev ention and Control or the 6th International Conference on Product Safety Re search, both of which took place in Amsterdam in May 1998. What all the acc idents studied in these papers have in common is the absence of professiona l supervision. Everyone immediately involved in the incident - whether as i njured party, unintended cause or informal supervisor is an 'amateur'. It i s proposed that the term 'domestic and personal accidents' should be used t o describe this group of accidents, the study of which has been neglected i n comparison to transport and occupational injuries. It is argued that dome stic and personal activities are more heterogeneous than ones with an eleme nt of professional supervision and are therefore more difficult to prevent. Nevertheless examples are given of where 'horizontal' approaches to analys is and prevention of these accidents have proved possible. (C) 2000 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.