York Health Economics Consortium has undertaken a scoping review to map the evidence base on the effectiveness of leading indicators for improving safety outcomes in occupational settings. This project was commissioned by Lloyd’s Register Foundation [https://www.lrfoundation.org.uk/], a global charity that supports research, innovation and education to make the world a safer place, including enhancing the safety of workers globally and across industries.
Leading indicators have been defined using a variety of concepts, but most commonly they describe proactive conditions, events or measures that precede undesirable events and have value in predicting or preventing the event’s arrival. While implementing successful leading indicators should lead to improvements in safety performance, existing studies have struggled to find any significant relationships and there are no known literature reviews on the topic.
In order to address the absence of reviews in this area of research, Lloyd’s Register Foundation commissioned a rapid evidence assessment of the available evidence base for leading indicators. This scoping review aimed to map the key characteristics of studies that assess the impact of leading indicators on safety outcomes (lagging indicators) in order to understand:
- For which leading indicators effectiveness has been evaluated.
- For which industries and in which countries this evidence comes from.
- Whether different leading indicators are evaluated in lower to middle income countries, compared to high income countries.
- How effectiveness has been evaluated.
- If there is any evidence for the effectiveness of leading indicators, and the nature of that evidence.
- How robust the evidence base is, and how can it be improved.
As part of our work with Lloyd’s Register Foundation, YHEC is providing free access to the scoping review report. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this work.