What Will the New Alliance Actually Deliver?
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has formed a new partnership called the National Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention Alliance. The alliance aims to help employers recognize the hazards that carry the greatest risk of serious injury and death, known as SIFs (serious injuries and fatalities). To that end, the alliance will share research and provide employers, workers and others with guidance and training to identify and eliminate such hazards.
Specifically, the alliance will share information on OSHA initiatives, regulations, and the rights and responsibilities of employers and workers. The partners will also jointly develop educational materials on recognizing and preventing SIFs, available in multiple languages and formats. The collaboration further includes participation in conferences, workshops and webinars, technical briefings for OSHA staff, State Plan officials and consultation personnel, and joint training and education for employers, workers and the wider public.
Who Is Behind the Alliance?
Alongside OSHA, the alliance includes the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), the National Safety Council (NSC) and the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) at the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, United States. Lorraine Martin, CEO of the National Safety Council, said of the partnership: “For more than half a century, the National Safety Council and OSHA have worked together to prevent injuries and save lives.” According to Martin, preventing serious incidents and fatalities requires “a deliberate focus on the hazards most likely to cause harm.” She said the alliance should help employers turn knowledge into concrete action.
Context
The National Safety Council describes the SIF concept at the heart of the alliance, in a background publication, as events that drastically change or end a life, and that can occur in any sector and to any worker. Near misses or less serious incidents that, under slightly different circumstances, could have resulted in a SIF are known as pSIFs (potential SIFs). According to the same publication, around 14,000 US workers died on the job each year in 1970, when the federal workplace safety law was signed; in OSHA’s first decade, the fatality rate fell by roughly 40 percent. More recent figures in the publication show an increase again: from 4,821 workplace fatalities in 2014 (3.4 per 100,000 workers) to 5,190 in 2022 (3.7 per 100,000) and a preliminary 5,283 in 2023.
What Does This Mean for HSE Professionals Worldwide?
Although the alliance is a US initiative, the underlying idea applies more broadly: not every recorded incident carries the same weight, and an organization with few minor injuries can, according to the NSC, still face a high risk of a SIF. For HSE professionals elsewhere, this is a prompt to look more explicitly at a hazard’s severity potential during risk assessments and incident investigations, rather than only at the outcome of the most recent incident. The materials the alliance develops in the coming period could serve as a reference point, even outside the United States, though they will need to be adapted to local legislation and practice in each country and sector.
Source: New SIF Prevention Alliance to Help Employers Identify High-risk Hazards, Prevent Serious Incidents and Fatalities, 9 October 2026
Additional research: NSC Thought Leadership: Understanding SIFs: Why they matter to everyone, National Safety Council / Safety+Health Magazine
