A New Transmission Cause and Effect Analysis (TCEA) Approach to Risk Management for Non-Healthcare Context: A Case Study on COVID-19

Leveraging the concept of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), we propose a simple and systematic approach, namely Transmission Cause and Effect Analysis (TCEA), to achieve a defined goal of reducing transmission risk through effective preventive and control actions in real-world environments. Specifically, the transmission risk of an infectious disease (e.g., COVID-19) is perceived as a combination of the presence of a transmission agent (e.g., SARS-CoV-2 virus or its variants) and the requisite factors that lead to infection of humans and the associated aftermath of infection. TCEA adopts a causal map to represent all possible transmission risks via a brainstorming process. Next, appropriate preventive and control actions associated with each transmission risk are identified. Similar to FMEA, a Risk Priority Number model with Severity, Occurrence, and Detection ratings is adopted for analysis, prioritization, and decision-making. To demonstrate the usefulness of TCEA, a real-world case study on COVID-19 is conducted. The empirical results indicate that TCEA provide a simple, systematic and easy-to-implement approach to effectively analyze and manage transmission risks of COVID-19 in non-healthcare workplaces.