Effective Parameters on Chemical Accidents Occurrence: Findings from a Systematic Review

Abstract

Chemical accidents have had an increasing trend both in developed and developing countries in the two recent decades. Inappropriate infrastructures make developing countries more vulnerable to chemical accidents. Assessing chemical risks and defining the relevant causes as well as variables are necessary for reducing the injuries and causalities of such chemical incidents. The aim of this study was to explore the causes and parameters affecting occurrence of chemical accidents. The study was performed in 2018. The systematic review adopted in this paper was based on a step-wise process including framing questions, identifying relevant works, assessing the quality of studies, summarizing the evidence and lastly discussing methods, results, and findings. It used bibliographies, citation databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, and other available records to find an answer to the question of what the effective parameters are on the chemical accident occurrence. Descriptive and thematic analyses were performed to find the articles. The written manuscript was evaluated by PRISMA checklist. It examined 24 peer-reviewed English papers, four reports, and one guideline. It found 39 variables mostly contributing to the occurrence of chemical accidents during this systematic review study. These variables were classified into three main causes and four categories. The main causes included direct/immediate factors, indirect/external/environmental factors, and root parameters. Prevention and mitigation chemical action plans are required to establish chemical safety and preparedness against chemical incidents. Further studies are needed to make the causes, categories and variables more valid, specific, and detailed based on the characteristics of production, storage, transportation, and chemical disposal activities.

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“…Identifying the causes of chemical accidents is important to mitigate or remove potential risks such as facility failures, unsafe actions, human errors, and administrative faults [7,10]. If more information regarding the causes of accidents is accumulated based on evidence, it will become easier to implement precautionary measures that may prevent similar accidents [11].…”