Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Aug 30, 2024 3:31:17 GMT
The Swiss cheese infographic that went viral - Published Dec 26, 2020
A visual representation of how to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 struck a chord with many in 2020. I won’t rehash all that has already been written about the Swiss cheese infographic but this is a small timeline, some links and some of the thinking that went on. Much of the detail is already on the New York Times piece along with a very sun-gazing photo of yours truly if you need content for the office dartboard.
Professor James T Reason proposed a layered approach to reducing the risk of accidents due to human error.
I really liked this approach for communicating risk reduction. Adapting it creates a simple way to get across that no single intervention (layer) is perfect, Each layer has its failings (holes) that can come and go and be made worse. Using lots of layers provides a better chance of preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
By the way, in Reason’s 1990 publication, this model wasn’t associated with cheese.
No Swiss cheese here – but a hole (limited window of accident opportunity) is apparent in an inadequate defence. Reason intended the order of these layers to be relevant, but for the COVID-19 Swiss cheese defence model version I put together, I moved away from the order of layers being important in favour of the package of layers (risk-reducing interventions) being key to preventing transmission SARS-CoV-2.
This is Figure 1 copied from J Reason, “The contribution of latent human failures to the breakdown of complex systems”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 327, 475-484 (1990)
Read the full, expansive article at the link!
A visual representation of how to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 struck a chord with many in 2020. I won’t rehash all that has already been written about the Swiss cheese infographic but this is a small timeline, some links and some of the thinking that went on. Much of the detail is already on the New York Times piece along with a very sun-gazing photo of yours truly if you need content for the office dartboard.
Professor James T Reason proposed a layered approach to reducing the risk of accidents due to human error.
I really liked this approach for communicating risk reduction. Adapting it creates a simple way to get across that no single intervention (layer) is perfect, Each layer has its failings (holes) that can come and go and be made worse. Using lots of layers provides a better chance of preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
By the way, in Reason’s 1990 publication, this model wasn’t associated with cheese.
No Swiss cheese here – but a hole (limited window of accident opportunity) is apparent in an inadequate defence. Reason intended the order of these layers to be relevant, but for the COVID-19 Swiss cheese defence model version I put together, I moved away from the order of layers being important in favour of the package of layers (risk-reducing interventions) being key to preventing transmission SARS-CoV-2.
This is Figure 1 copied from J Reason, “The contribution of latent human failures to the breakdown of complex systems”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 327, 475-484 (1990)
Read the full, expansive article at the link!