Which of the following is a typical health and safety performance indicator?

• A. Near-miss reporting
• B. Corrective actions
• C. Lost time injury frequency rate
• D. Safety observations

Answer: (C)

Lost time injury frequency rate provides a clear, comparable measure of injuries that lead to lost work time over a defined period. It’s a standard metric because it reflects actual safety outcomes, not just activities or intentions, and it can be benchmarked across projects or sites and tracked over time to show trend.

This makes it a reliable performance indicator: it shows whether safety performance is improving or deteriorating based on tangible injuries. In contrast, near-miss reporting, safety observations, and corrective actions are valuable for driving safety culture and proactive improvement, but they serve as leading or process measures rather than a direct outcome metric. LTIFR directly quantifies the consequence of safety practices in terms of injuries and lost time, which is why it is typically used as a primary health and safety performance indicator.