A Review of Safety Economics Studies and Cost of Occupational Accidents in Iran from 2000 to 2021

Due to occupational accidents, many costs are annually lost from the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Estimating these costs can be essential for optimal investments and establishing appropriate policies in many countries, such as Iran. The present study aimed to review the studies conducted on the safety economics and the costs of accidents in Iran from 2000 to 2021.

The reliable databases “Web of Science”, “Embase”, “IranDoc”, “SID”, “Magiran”, “Google Scholar”, “PubMed” and “Scopus” were used to conduct this research. Articles in these databases were searched and extracted by searching for keywords such as “accident”, “cost of accidents”, “occupational accidents” and “Iran” in Persian and English from 2000 to 2021.

Among the 66 identified articles, 19 were selected as final articles, of which 11 studies were carried out in the transportation industry and eight in other industries. Among these studies, nine studies only examined and stated the total costs, and six studies separately examined and stated the direct, indirect, and total costs. Four other studies also investigated and expressed the costs caused by accidents in other ways. Most notably, in three studies, the number of direct costs is higher than indirect costs. Similarly, only six studies estimated the damage to the GDP, ranging from 0.03% to 6.46% of the GDP.

The results of the review of studies showed that occupational accidents cause the loss of a significant part of Iran’s GDP. It is recommended to carry out further studies on the relationship between investment in the safety sector and reducing the costs of accidents concerning the grouping of jobs, mainly in the process, service, and production industries, to prevent wasting such heavy costs.