[Case Study] CityCenter and Cosmopolitan Construction Projects, Las Vegas, Nevada: lessons learned from the use of multiple sources and mixed methods in a safety needs assessment

Whether occupational injuries of the industrial workers can be prevented: an analysis from the slums of West Bengal-India?

A lack of research exists concerning the heterogeneity of the occupational injuries of slum dwellers across industries which has a close link with health expenditure and hence livelihood. It necessitates analysing their occupational injuries and associated out-of-pocket health expenditures. Multi-stage random sampling is used to collect the primary data and the logit model is used for data analyses. Permanent non-fatal injuries in the civil-mechanical industries and temporary non-fatal injuries in textile industries are common. The share of health expenditure of the injured workers seeking medical consultations remains 59% of their average monthly income. Average monthly income, parental occupation, types of industry, job security, risk intensity, and salary basis are significant estimates of occupational injuries. The differences in the nature and extent of the occupational injuries of the workers across industries in the light of the socio-demographic and working environment context provide significant insight into the policy implications.

Who do you ask? Predicting injury rates from survey responses

BACKGROUND

Few studies have addressed whether using manager or worker perceptions of safety policies and practices alone predict reported injury rates less accurately than using both.

OBJECTIVE

This study provides an example and describes a method that can be used to address this issue with survey instruments designed to measure safety climate, policies, or practices.

METHODS

Using multilevel logistic regression, we estimated the relationship between worker and manager perceptions of a given exposure and the odds of worker injury during the post-survey year for three safety scales. We tested whether surveying both workers and managers provides additional predictive value compared with surveying just one group.

RESULTS

Injury in the year following the survey was significantly associated with worker scores on two of the three scales. Manager responses were not significantly associated with injury and did not significantly improve injury rate prediction when added to a model with only worker survey responses.

CONCLUSIONS

The capacity of manager-only or worker-only perceptions of safety policies and practices to predict worker injuries should be established before choosing to survey just one or the other. The approach and findings in this paper can be applied to other survey instruments and in other settings to help make this choice.

Shared Leadership for Total Worker Health in the Construction Industry

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study is to investigate the organizational, supervisor, team, and individual factors associated with employee and leader perceptions of shared Total Worker Health (TWH) transformational leadership in teams. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with 14 teams across three construction companies. Results: Shared TWH transformational leadership in teams was associated with employees and leaders' perceptions of support from coworkers. Other factors were also associated it, but it differed by position. Conclusions: We found that leaders may be focused on the mechanics of sharing TWH transformational leadership responsibilities and workers may be more focused on their internal cognitive abilities and motivations. Our results suggest the potential ways of promoting shared TWH transformational leadership among construction teams.

Comparison of management and workers' perception, attitudes and beliefs toward health and safety in the Ontario manufacturing sector

INTRODUCTION

The Ontario manufacturing sector is over-represented when it comes to workers' compensation claims in the province. A previous study suggested that this may be the result of compliance gaps with respect to the province's occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation. These gaps may be, in part, due to differences in perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs toward OHS between workers and management. This is noteworthy as these two cohorts, when working well together, can foster a healthy and safe work environment. Therefore, this study sought to ascertain the perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs of workers and management with respect to OHS in the Ontario manufacturing sector and to identify differences between the groups, if any.

METHODS

A survey was created and disseminated online to get the widest reach across the province as possible. Descriptive statistics were used to present the data and chi-square analyses were performed to determine if there were any statistically significant differences in responses between workers and managers.

RESULTS

In total, 3,963 surveys were included in the analysis, which consisted of 2,401 (60.6%) workers and 1,562 (39.4%) managers. Overall, workers were more likely to state that their workplace was 'a bit unsafe' relative to managers and this difference was statistically significant. There were also statistically significant differences between the two cohorts with respect to health and safety communication matters, the perception of safety as a high priority, whether people work safely when unsupervised, and whether control measures are adequate.

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, there were differences in perception, attitudes, and beliefs toward OHS between workers and managers in Ontario manufacturing and these differences must be addressed in order to improve the sector's health and safety performance.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Manufacturing workplaces can improve their health and safety performance by strengthening labor-management relationships, including having routine health and safety communication.

Occupational injuries and contributing factors among industry park construction workers in Northwest Ethiopia

Background

Construction business is currently the second greatest source of injuries in Ethiopia after automotive accidents, with a risk of fatality that is five times higher than that of other industrial sectors. To establish measures for injury prevention, it is crucial to assess the severity of occupational injuries and identify the variables that contribute to them. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the magnitude and factors associated with occupational injuries among Bure Industrial Park construction workers, Northwest Ethiopia.

Methods

An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 372 construction workers at Bure Industrial Park. The study participants were selected using a simple random sampling method. The data were collected using interviewer-administered structured questionnaire and work environment observation using structured checklist. In the descriptive statistic, frequencies, proportion, and mean were calculated and the results of the analysis were presented in text and tables. The bi-variable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify independent factors having associations with the occurrence of occupational injury.

Results

The overall prevalence of occupational injuries among Bure industrial park construction workers was 39.4%, 95%C.I (34.4%-44.4%). Factors such as sex (being male) [AOR = 1.74, 95%CI (1.02-2.97)], being married [AOR = 2.79, 95%CI (1.50-5.17)], no use of personal protective equipment [AOR = 1.67, 95%CI (1.12-2.85)], no training on occupational safety [AOR = 1.45, 95%CI (1.06-2.98)], and not satisfied with the job [AOR = 5.97, 95%CI (3.48-10.2)] were the factors associated with occupational injuries.

Conclusion and recommendation

The finding shows the public health importance of occupational injury among construction workers in the study area. Numerous factors have been linked to workplace injuries, including sex, marital status, the usage of personal protection equipment, training in occupational safety, and job satisfaction. As a result, in order to lower the rate of occupational injury, employers should prioritize offering safety training, encouraging the use of personal protective equipment while working, conducting routine workplace inspections, and ensuring that their staff members are happy at work by providing comfortable workspaces.

Assessment of workplace safety climate among power sector employees: A comparative study of cross-culture employer in Pakistan

Pakistan's power sector has undergone extensive reforms to improve its technical and monetary performance over the last two decades. However, despite its fast-growing and hazardous nature, safety research remains limited in this context. This study aims to address this gap by assessing the level of safety climate in the power sector and comparing the safety climate in plants operated by multinational companies (MNCs) and local companies (LCs).To this end, five power plants operating in the southern part of the Punjab region (in Pakistan) were included in this study. The Nordic Occupational Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50), an analytical tool comprising of 50 items across seven dimensions, was used to determine the level of safety climate. An independent T-Test was then applied to compare the means in two different setups to draw a conclusion about overall safety climate differences. In MNCs, overall management/leadership perception improved; however, workers in both setups responded similarly in many cases. The lowest observed score in both setups was related to worker's prioritization of safety and risk non-acceptance. The study highlights the importance of a company's policies, procedures, and leadership commitments in creating a stronger safety climate by instilling trust in workers. The study further demonstrates that cross-cultural and strong policies devised by multinational companies help to improve the overall safety climate andconcludes that promoting an efficient and positive safety climate in the power sector is a long journey and that can only be achieved if all workers and leaders take on an active role.

Latin American Agricultural Workers' Job Demands and Resources and the Association With Health Behaviors at Work and Overall Health

In the present study, we describe the job demands and job resources (JD-R) experienced by agricultural workers in three Latin American countries and their relationship to proactive health behaviors at work and overall health. Following previous research on the JD-R model, we hypothesized that job demands (H1) would be negatively related to agricultural workers' self-reported overall health. On the other hand, we hypothesized that job resources (H2) would be positively related to agricultural workers' overall health. Furthermore, we hypothesized (H3) that workers' engagement in jobsite health promotion practices via their proactive health behaviors at work would partially mediate the relationship between workers' job resources and job demands and overall health. We also had a research question (R1) about whether there were differences by type of job held. The sample of workers who participated in this study (N = 1,861) worked in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua for one large agribusiness that produces sugar cane. They worked in two distinct areas: company administration and agricultural operations. We administered employee health and safety culture surveys using survey methods tailored to meet the needs of both types of workers. Stratified path analysis models were used to test study hypotheses. In general, we found support for hypotheses 1 and 2. For example, operations workers reported more physically demanding jobs and administrative workers reported more work-related stress. Regardless, the existence of high job demands was associated with poorer overall health amongst both types of workers. We found that workers in more health-supportive work environments perform more proactive health behaviors at work, regardless of their role within the organization. However, hypothesis 3 was not supported as proactive health behaviors at work was not associated with overall health. We discuss future research needs in terms of evaluating these hypotheses amongst workers employed by small- and medium-sized agribusinesses as well as those in the informal economy in Latin America. We also discuss important implications for agribusinesses seeking to develop health promotion programs that meet the needs of all workers.

Safety Stressors and Construction Workers' Safety Performance: The Mediating Role of Ego Depletion and Self-Efficacy

As an important influencing factor of construction workers' safety performance, safety stressor has received increasing attention. However, no consensus has been reached on the relationship between different types of safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance, and the mechanism by which safety stressors influence safety performance remains unclear. This study proposed a multiple mediation model with ego depletion and self-efficacy as mediators between safety stressors and workers' safety performance. Data were collected from 335 construction workers in China. Results demonstrated that: (1) the three types of safety stressors (i.e., safety role ambiguity, safety role conflict, and interpersonal safety conflict) all had negative effects on workers' safety performance (i.e., safety compliance and safety participation); (2) self-efficacy mediated all the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; (3) ego depletion only mediated part of the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; and (4) only part of the multiple-step mediating effects through ego depletion and self-efficacy were supported. This study made contributions by shedding light on the mechanism by which safety stressors influence workers' safety performance and providing more empirical evidence for the relationship between various safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance. Additionally, targeted strategies for improving workers' safety performance were proposed according to the findings.

Flow-down of safety from general contractors to subcontractors working on commercial construction projects

Small and medium construction firms have high injury rates but lack resources to establish and maintain effective safety programs. General contractors with exemplary safety programs may serve as intermediaries to support development of smaller firm's safety programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the flow-down influence of general contractors' safety programs on the safety climate and safety behaviors among workers employed by small and medium sized subcontractors. This study collected workers' perception of safety climate and safety behaviors while working on projects with general contractors with exemplary safety programs and other general contractors. We also documented the safety program policies and practices of subcontractors, and recorded the changes in safety policies required from general contractors with exemplary programs. We examined differences in safety program changes between small and medium sized subcontractors. Results showed workers perceived general contractors with exemplary safety programs had stronger safety climates than other general contractors. Smaller subcontractors had less robust safety programs with fewer safety elements than larger subcontractors, and therefore, many of the smaller subcontractors had to adopt more safety policies and practices to work for general contractors than large subcontractors. These findings suggest that general contractors with robust safety programs can serve as intermediaries and influence the development of the safety programs of small sized firms. Future work will need to determine if smaller firms eventually adopt safety policies and practices as part of their permanent safety program.

Investigation of Multi-level Safety Culture in the Indian Construction Industry: A Multi-level Employees' Perception Based Approach

Inadequate compliance with safety practices is a major hurdle in the construction industry, and a single-level source of input to assess safety culture is a major limitation of the literature. Therefore, this study aimed to capture multi-level employees' (top management (TM), middle management (MM), and workers) perceptions to assess multi-level safety culture (organization level (OL), project level (PL), and personnel level (PPL)) in the construction industry. This study considered Indian construction industry a study area and used a questionnaire survey and interview technique as research instruments. 184 responses were collected from multi-level employees. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistical method and hypothesis testing using the Mann-Whitney U test followed by the Kruskal-Wallis and Post Hoc test. Findings highlighted inadequate safety compliances and significant (p < 0.05) perception differences among multi-level employees. Further, root cause analysis for observed perception differences was performed, and managerial implications were discussed from implementation perspectives.

Safety Climate and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Investigation on Safety Perceptions among Farmers in Italy

The diffusion of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated numerous interventions aimed at reducing the contagion by means of specific prevention measures, also characterized by stricter occupational health and safety (OHS) procedures at the workplace. To better understand how this novel working context has impacted on farmers’ safety behavior and attitude, a safety climate assessment was carried out by means of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50), which was augmented to include specific items related to the modifications of working conditions due to COVID-19. This allowed us to analyze changes in safety climate perceptions, pointing out worker-manager discrepancies in safety behavior and attitude. Additionally, the COVID-19 questionnaire contributed to analyzing the effects of the specific OHS measures due to the pandemic from the workers’ standpoint. Results showed that concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic have augmented the attention paid to OHS, demonstrating a correlation between the safety climate dimensions and the OHS measures due to COVID-19. Besides, farmers’ risk-taking behavior and attitude appeared still critical, highlighting the need for more specific and contextual interventions in terms of safety information and training. Overall, this study aims to expand knowledge on shared safety awareness and perceptions in the COVID-19 period.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Workplace Social Relations and Worksite Health Promotion Use

OBJECTIVE

To study whether workplace social relations explain use of worksite health promotion (WHP), by examining colleagues' and team managers' WHP encouragement of a healthy lifestyle, and colleague WHP uptake.

METHODS

Multilevel data came from the second wave of the European Sustainable Workforce Survey (4345 employees of 402 team in 9 countries). Linear probability models were used to test use of two types of WHP: healthy menus and sport facilities.

RESULTS

Employees are more likely to use healthy menus and sport facilities when more colleagues do so too and when colleagues encourage a healthy lifestyle. Surprisingly, encouragement by one's manager plays no role.

CONCLUSIONS

Social contact among colleagues can facilitate WHP use, and WHP initiatives should pay attention to the influential role of colleagues.

Critical Success Factors for Safety Training in the Construction Industry

Construction is a hazardous industry. The project-based nature and fragmentation in the industry lead to change and uncertainty requiring special expertise. To handle those, construction firms must develop strategies and action plans along with the experience gained from lessons learned. Among the risks, safety risks are of critical importance leading to accidents. Hence, firms need to strengthen their safety programs, review their strategies for safety management, and develop effective safety training sessions to protect their workers. This study focuses on the success factors promoting safety performance. In this respect, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the Engineering News-Record (ENR) 2020 Top 400 Contractors. The questionnaire data was utilized in conducting a factor analysis to group and name the factors considering the total variance. The analysis of the factors resulted in six-factor groups; namely, project and firm-related factors, demographic factors, practical factors, motivational factors, organizational factors, and human-related factors. Project and firm-related factors were found to be the most essential factor group in terms of promoting the effectiveness of safety training. The results of this study are expected to guide industry practitioners in terms of reviewing and revising their safety training programs.

Occupational injury and associated factors among construction workers in Ethiopia: a systematic and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Occupational injury is any personal injury, disease or death resulting from an occupational accident sustained on worker in connection with the performance of his or her work. Studies conducted in Ethiopia indicated variable findings ranging from 30% to 84.7% prevalence of occupational injury among construction workers. Therefore, the main aim of this systematic and meta-analysis was to pool the estimates and find the reasons for variability of the findings.

METHODS

The review has been registered at PROSPERO with registration identification number CRD42020222785. PubMed, Advanced Google search and Google Scholar databases were searched up to June 20, 2020 to identify relevant articles. Stata v14 (StataCorp, College Station, Texas, USA) was used for meta-analysis. Publication bias was assessed by the funnel plot and more objectively by Egger's regression test. I-squared statistics was used to check the heterogeneity of the studies.

RESULT

This research searched a total of, 1241articles, from these articles 1189 from PubMed, 21 from advanced Google search and 31 from Google scholar databases. A total of 12 studies were included in the analysis and all of them were institutional based cross-sectional studies. All studies were conducted from 2004 to 2018 but published from 2007 to 2019. The prevalence of occupational injury among included studies ranges from 30% to 84.7% while the pooled prevalence of occupational injury among construction workers was 45.64% with 95%CI (33.54-57.74). The effect of each variables against occupational injury was pooled and PPE use [AOR = 1.75, 95%CI (1.46, 2.1)], occupational safety training [AOR = 1.63, 95%CI (1.13, 2.34)] and existence of regular supervision [AOR = 1.4, 95%CI (1.16, 1.68)] were significantly associated to occupational injury among construction workers at p-value ≤ 0.05 with 95% CI.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of occupational injury among construction workers is still very high and variables such as PPE use, occupational safety training and existence of regular supervision were factors affecting occupational injury among construction workers. Supply and use of PPE, provision of occupational safety training and regular supervision of workers has to be in place in order to reduce or remove occupational injury among construction workers in Ethiopia.

Influence of knowledge-based safety culture in the construction industry: a stakeholder's perspective

Purpose

Safety in construction projects is essential and requires more attention towards minimizing the accident rate. Problems concerning awareness of safety risks, procedures and practices still exist in the industry, which indicate a shortfall in diffusion of safety-related knowledge in construction industry. Also, there is dearth of studies on knowledge management strategies to prevent reoccurrence of accidents and thereby improve safety culture in construction industry. This study attempts to unveil aspects of knowledge management that are ignored in considering safety culture and discern the differences in the perception of key stakeholders of construction industry. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify and measure knowledge-based safety culture elements.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the focus is on the application of a reliable, valid and sensitive knowledge-based safety culture assessment tool on key stakeholders operational in construction industry. Research method adopted is a questionnaire-based survey to seek responses from industry professionals. A total of 199 responses were obtained from 106 different companies operational in Indian construction industry. Statistical analyses including ranking analysis, t-test, correlation analysis, and ANOVA test are utilized for comparing and identifying the differences in view of stakeholder's perceptions concerning workplace safety.

Findings

This study helps to identify and rank critical knowledge-based safety culture elements from the perspective of key stakeholders of construction industry. This contributes in identifying the most critical and neglected variables among the key stakeholders regarding aspects of safety culture. Also, the study shows the importance of knowledge dimension in developing overall safety culture in construction industry.

Originality/value

Results of this study offer valuable insight in enabling key stakeholders of construction industry to examine and enhance their safety performance. The implications of this study contribute new knowledge in assessing conditions that will improve worker safety in the construction industry. The paper should be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the area of occupational health and safety management.

Antecedents of safety behavior in construction: A literature review and an integrated conceptual framework

There has been no scarcity in the literature of suggested antecedents of employee safety behavior, and this paper brings together the disaggregated antecedents of safety behavior in the construction field. In total, 101 eligible empirical articles are obtained. Bibliometric and context analyses are combined to identify the influential journals, scholars, keywords, use of theory, research methods, and countries or regions of the empirical samples. The 83 factors that are identified are divided into five groups, namely (a) individual characteristics, (b) workgroup interactions, (c) work and workplace design, (d) project management and organization, and (e) family, industry, and society. This indicates that the causes of safety behavior are manifold. Various factors from different systems likely work in concert to create situations in which an individual chooses to comply with safety rules and participate voluntarily in safety activities. Given this, we propose that safety behavior is only an ostensible symptom of more complex "The Self-Work-Home-Industry/Society" systems and establish a safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model. Based on this model, we develop a resource flow model, illustrating why, how, and when the flow of resources between the five systems-namely the self system, work system, home system, work-home interface system, and industry/society system-either promotes or inhibits safety behavior. The safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model and resource flow model are based mainly on bioecological system theory and resources theories. Avenues for future theoretical development and method designs are suggested based on the reviewed findings and the two conceptual models. The intention with this systematic review together with the two integrated conceptual models is to advance theoretical thinking on how safety behavior can be promoted, or instead, inhibited.

The association between subcontractor safety management programs and worker perceived safety climate in commercial construction projects

PROBLEM

Safety management programs (SMPs) are designed to mitigate risk of workplace injuries and create a safe working climate. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the relationship between contractors' SMPs and workers' perceived safety climate and safety behaviors among small and medium-sized construction subcontractors.

METHODS

Subcontractor SMP scores on 18 organizational and project-level safety items were coded from subcontractors' written safety programs and interviews. Workers completed surveys to report perceptions of their contractor's safety climate and the safety behaviors of coworkers, crews, and themselves. The associations between SMP scores and safety climate and behavior scales were examined using Spearman correlation and hierarchical linear regression models (HLM).

RESULTS

Among 78 subcontractors working on large commercial construction projects, we found striking differences in SMP scores between small, medium, and large subcontractors (p < 0.001), related to a number of specific safety management practices. We observed only weak relationships between SMP scales and safety climate scores reported by 746 workers of these subcontractors (β = 0.09, p = 0.04 by HLM). We saw no differences in worker reported safety climate and safety behaviors by contractor size.

DISCUSSION

SMP only weakly predicted safety climate scales of subcontractors, yet there were large differences in the quality and content of SMPs by size of employers.

SUMMARY

Future work should determine the best way to measure safety performance of construction companies and determine the factors that can lead to improved safety performance of construction firms. Practical applications: Our simple assessment of common elements of safety management programs used document review and interviews with knowledgeable representatives. These methods identified specific safety management practices that differed between large and small employers. In order to improve construction safety, it is important to understand how best to measure safety performance in construction companies to gain knowledge for creating safer work environments.

Safety stressors, safety-specific trust, and safety citizenship behavior: A contingency perspective

Employee safety citizenship behavior (SCB) is critical for workplace safety in a high-risk work environment, but few studies have addressed how safety stressors affect SCB. This study investigates the different relationships between safety stressors (safety role ambiguity, safety role conflict, and interpersonal safety conflict) and two forms of SCB (proactive and prosocial). It also examines the moderating effect of safety-specific trust (cognition- and affect-based) within these relationships. An analysis of 332 multisource data from frontline workers and their safety supervisors in China reveals that safety role ambiguity and safety role conflict negatively affect proactive safety behaviors, while interpersonal safety conflict impedes prosocial safety behaviors. Additionally, cognition-based safety trust alleviates the effects of safety role ambiguity and safety role conflict on proactive safety behaviors, whereas affect-based safety trust effectively restricts the influence of interpersonal safety conflict on prosocial safety behaviors. These results suggest that managers need to instill SCB in their subordinates and combat stressful conditions through interventions that enhance safety-specific trust.

Social Dialogue and Psychosocial Risk Management: Added Value of Manager and Employee Representative Agreement in Risk Perception and Awareness

The present study aimed to explore the added value of managers’ and employee representatives’ agreement in risk perception and awareness in explaining the management of more ‘subjective’ psychosocial risks as compared to the more ‘objective’ traditional OSH risks. The general assumption tested was whether the added value of agreement in risk perception and awareness between these parties would be larger for psychosocial risk management as compared to traditional OSH risk management. European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-1) data were used from 7226 enterprises in which both managers and employee representatives were interviewed. Answers by employee representatives and managers to mirror questions on risk perception and awareness were used as independent variables, and answers to questions on risk management by the manager were used as dependent variables. Polynomial regression with response surface analysis was used. Differences in risk perception and awareness between managers and employee representatives explained more variance in psychosocial risk management as compared to more traditional OSH risk management. The implications of these findings and the importance of ‘social dialogue’ particularly in the case of psychosocial risk management as opposed to general OSH management are discussed.

Evaluation of pile driving accidents in geotechnical engineering

Pile driving accidents that occurred between 1984 and 2018 were selected from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration database, producing 84 cases. To evaluate the causes of accidents, pile driving stages were presented and the potential hazards were discussed. Two models were necessary to link the accidents with workers' behavior. An accident type model and a workers' behavior model were developed. The accident type model was related to physical factors leading to accidents, and the workers' behavior model determined the occupational behavior under the act of the incident. Among fatal accidents, unsafe site conditions had the highest frequency at 26.9%. Among non-fatal accidents, both poor attitudes toward safety and unsafe methods had the highest frequency at 28.1%. Furthermore, a map presenting work-specific accident frequencies in pile driving operations was created. Consequently, project-specific countermeasures should be taken regarding the root causes of accidents, leading to vigorous strategies to develop safety measures.

Workplace injury and associated factors among construction workers in Gondar town, Northwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND

The construction industry is one of the most hazardous working areas, where the highest number of labourers engaged. However, the predisposing factors for occupational injury in the construction sites in Ethiopia are not well investigated. This study was, therefore, conducted to assess the magnitude of occupational injury and associated factors among construction workers in Gondar town, northwest Ethiopia.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 566 construction workers. Systematic random sampling technique was used to select study subjects. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and observation checklist. Multivariable binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify variables significantly associated with occupational injury on the basis of adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) and p < 0.05.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of work-related injury in 3 months prior to the survey was found to be 39% (95% CI = 35.0-43.1%). The occurrence of occupational injury was associated with single workers [AOR = 0.50, 95% CI = 0.25, 0.97], longer service year [AOR = 2.79, 95% CI = 1.72-4.53], poor attention to work [AOR = 2.65, 95% CI = 1.33, 5.29], working with vibrating hand tools [AOR = 3.23, 95% CI = 1.19, 8.76], no aware about occupational hazards [AOR = 4.66, 95% CI = 1.99, 10.87], and alcohol consumption [AOR = 3.16, 95% CI = 2.09, 4.79].

CONCLUSION

High prevalence of occupational injury was reported in the study area. Cut and fall were the leading causes. Marital status, service year, attention to work, use of vibrating hand tools, awareness about occupational hazards, and drinking alcohol were identified as factors associated with occupational injury. Therefore, health and safety trainings have to be taken place to aware workers about occupational injury and safety issues. Regular workplace supervision and provision of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) are also needed to prevent occupational injury. The findings of this study are useful to design and implement injury prevention strategies in the country. The study also contributes to the current literature as health and safety information is limited, especially in developing countries.

Determinants of Safety Climate in the Professional Logging Industry

Work involving forest logging is considered one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. In the intermountain region of Montana and Idaho in the United States, the extreme terrain, remote location and severe weather conditions escalate risk. Although safety has improved through the development of mechanized equipment, logging tasks continue to be very hazardous. Thus, as with leading companies in other occupational sectors, logging enterprises are beginning to consider safety climate as a useful measure in their safety systems. The purpose of this study was to quantify safety climate within the logging industry of Montana, USA and to identify specific determinants of safety climate. A demographic, musculoskeletal symptom (MSS), and safety climate survey (NOSACQ-50) was administered to 743 professional loggers. Analyses were conducted to determine the association between demographic characteristics, MSS, workplace variables and the scores on five safety climate dimensions (management safety priority and ability, workers' safety commitment, workers' safety priority and risk non-acceptance, peer safety communication, learning and trust in safety ability, and workers' trust in efficacy of safety systems). Variables identified as predictors of safety climate included logging system type, supervisory status, age, years of experience and reported MSS. As safety climate is a leading indicator of workplace safety, if work groups with the lowest safety climate scores can be identified, they could receive targeted safety intervention programs or resources; thereby directing resources to the groups who need it the most, without relying on lagging indicators such as injury and fatality rates.

Perceptions on safety climate: a case study in the Omani construction industry

Generally, a mature safety climate and a rich safety culture contribute to achieving a safe workplace. The purpose of this paper is to examine the understanding of using safety climate and to make explicit some of the main elements that have a greater impact in the construction industry in Oman. Relevant safety climate factors from literature have been identified using specific search criteria, which resulted in 62 factors spanning over a period of 37 years from 1980 to 2017. The results of face-to-face interviews with construction professionals from chosen construction companies in Oman that show a high level of safety performance are also presented. The result shows that management commitment; alignment and integration of safety as a value; accountability across the board; supervisory management; empowerment and involvement of workers; improvement of communication; and training and education are some of the main elements that significantly affect safety climate in Oman. The common safety climate factors reported in this research are based on the views of selected interviewees working in the construction industry in Oman. It is suggested that these factors may be validated further considering views of other members of the construction team, before being used for safety climate assessment.

Total Worker Health: A Small Business Leader Perspective

Total Worker Health® (TWH) frameworks call for attention to organizational leadership in the implementation and effectiveness of TWH approaches. It is especially important to study this within in the small business environment where employees face significant health, safety, and well-being concerns and employers face barriers to addressing these concerns. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how small business leaders perceive employee health, safety, and well-being in the context of their own actions. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 small business senior leaders and used a qualitative coding approach to analyze the transcripts to determine the frequency with which leaders discussed each code. When we asked leaders about their leadership practices for health, safety, and well-being, leaders reflected upon their business (65%), themselves (28%), and their employees (7%). Leaders rarely discussed the ways in which they integrate health, safety, and well-being. The interviews demonstrate that small business leaders care about the health of their employees, but because of the perceived value to their business, not to employees or themselves. Thus, they may lack the knowledge and skills to be successful TWH leaders. The present study supports a need for continued small business TWH leadership research.

Development of Construction Workers Job Stress Scale to Study and the Relationship between Job Stress and Safety Behavior: An Empirical Study in Beijing

Job stress is considered one of the critical causes of construction workers' unsafe behaviors. As a mainstay industry in many countries, the construction industry has a considerable number of employees and the research on how job stress affects workers' unsafe behaviors has important theoretical and practical significance to improve construction safety performance through better job stress management. In this study, the authors thoroughly reviewed the literature and conducted semi-structured interviews to identify the dimensions of job stress, designed the job stress scale and cited the safety behavior measurement scale. After that, a questionnaire survey was developed using the proposed measurement scale and distributed to the construction employees from a project in Beijing. One hundred fifty responses were collected and analyzed using reliability analysis to validate the scale's internal consistency. Results from factor analysis indicate that the scales of job stress measurement can be grouped into six dimensions. To demonstrate the applicability of the developed scale on construction safety management research, the collected data was used to test the hypothesis that job stress has a negative correlation with safety behavior. Results show that the hypothesis is valid, and there is a negative correlation between job stress and safety behavior. In addition, finer results of the relationship between the six dimensions of job stress and safety behavior can be obtained. In summary, this study developed an improved stress scale for construction workers in China, and the proposed scale was validated by analyzing the data from an empirical study in Beijing.

Leadership and safety: the role of goal commitment

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate safety goal commitment as a potential mediator of the relationship between safety-specific transformational leadership and safety performance.

Design/methodology/approach

A field study was conducted in a sample of municipal utilities workers. All workers were asked to take a survey during work time.

Findings

The results suggest that safety-specific transformational leadership is positively related to safety performance and safety goal commitment, safety goal commitment is positively related to safety performance, and goal commitment is a significant mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and safety performance.

Practical implications

Goal-setting theory and subsequent research has suggested a variety of strategies that can be employed to enhance the goal commitment of employees, and this study suggests that some of these strategies could be explored in the occupational safety realm. Future research could explore what transformational behaviors might be taught which would aid in setting safety goals with employees and motivating them to commit to those goals.

Originality/value

These findings add to existing research which supports connections between transformational leadership and job behaviors. Furthermore, they add to the limited research which has explored possible explanatory mechanisms and underscores the importance of safety goal commitment as the focus of future research and/or organizational interventions.

Safety climate and safety behaviors in the construction industry: The importance of co-workers commitment to safety

BACKGROUND

There is growing empirical evidence that as safety climate improves work site safety practice improve. Safety climate is often measured by asking workers about their perceptions of management commitment to safety. However, it is less common to include perceptions of their co-workers commitment to safety. While the involvement of management in safety is essential, working with co-workers who value and prioritize safety may be just as important.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate a concept of safety climate that focuses on top management, supervisors and co-workers commitment to safety, which is relatively new and untested in the United States construction industry.

METHODS

Survey data was collected from a cohort of 300 unionized construction workers in the United States. The significance of direct and indirect (mediation) effects among safety climate and safety behavior factors were evaluated via structural equation modeling.

RESULTS

Results indicated that safety climate was associated with safety behaviors on the job. More specifically, perceptions of co-workers commitment to safety was a mediator between both management commitment to safety climate factors and safety behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

These results support workplace health and safety interventions that build and sustain safety climate and a commitment to safety amongst work teams.

Defining and Measuring Safety Climate: A Review of the Construction Industry Literature

Safety climate measurements can be used to proactively assess an organization's effectiveness in identifying and remediating work-related hazards, thereby reducing or preventing work-related ill health and injury. This review article focuses on construction-specific articles that developed and/or measured safety climate, assessed safety climate's relationship with other safety and health performance indicators, and/or used safety climate measures to evaluate interventions targeting one or more indicators of safety climate. Fifty-six articles met our inclusion criteria, 80% of which were published after 2008. Our findings demonstrate that researchers commonly defined safety climate as perception based, but the object of those perceptions varies widely. Within the wide range of indicators used to measure safety climate, safety policies, procedures, and practices were the most common, followed by general management commitment to safety. The most frequently used indicators should and do reflect that the prevention of work-related ill health and injury depends on both organizational and employee actions. Safety climate scores were commonly compared between groups (e.g. management and workers, different trades), and often correlated with subjective measures of safety behavior rather than measures of ill health or objective safety and health outcomes. Despite the observed limitations of current research, safety climate has been promised as a useful feature of research and practice activities to prevent work-related ill health and injury. Safety climate survey data can reveal gaps between management and employee perceptions, or between espoused and enacted policies, and trigger communication and action to narrow those gaps. The validation of safety climate with safety and health performance data offers the potential for using safety climate measures as a leading indicator of performance. We discuss these findings in relation to the related concept of safety culture and offer suggestions for future research and practice including (i) deriving a common definition of safety climate, (ii) developing and testing construction-specific indicators of safety climate, and (iii) focusing on construction-specific issues such as the transient workforce, subcontracting, work organization, and induction/acculturation processes.

Results of a community-based survey of construction safety climate for Hispanic workers

BACKGROUND

Hispanic construction workers experience high rates of occupational injury, likely influenced by individual, organizational, and social factors.

OBJECTIVES

To characterize the safety climate of Hispanic construction workers using worker, contractor, and supervisor perceptions of the workplace.

METHODS

We developed a 40-item interviewer-assisted survey with six safety climate dimensions and administered it in Spanish and English to construction workers, contractors, and supervisors. A safety climate model, comparing responses and assessing contributing factors was created based on survey responses.

RESULTS

While contractors and construction supervisors' (n = 128) scores were higher, all respondents shared a negative perception of safety climate. Construction workers had statistically significantly lower safety climate scores compared to supervisors and contractors (30·6 vs 46·5%, P<0·05). Safety climate scores were not associated with English language ability or years lived in the United States.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that Hispanic construction workers in this study experienced a poor safety climate. The Hispanic construction safety climate model we propose can serve as a framework to guide organizational safety interventions and evaluate safety climate improvements.

Correlation between safety climate and contractor safety assessment programs in construction

BACKGROUND

Contractor safety assessment programs (CSAPs) measure safety performance by integrating multiple data sources together; however, the relationship between these measures of safety performance and safety climate within the construction industry is unknown.

METHODS

Four hundred and one construction workers employed by 68 companies on 26 sites and 11 safety managers employed by 11 companies completed brief surveys containing a nine-item safety climate scale developed for the construction industry. CSAP scores from ConstructSecure, Inc., an online CSAP database, classified these 68 companies as high or low scorers, with the median score of the sample population as the threshold. Spearman rank correlations evaluated the association between the CSAP score and the safety climate score at the individual level, as well as with various grouping methodologies. In addition, Spearman correlations evaluated the comparison between manager-assessed safety climate and worker-assessed safety climate.

RESULTS

There were no statistically significant differences between safety climate scores reported by workers in the high and low CSAP groups. There were, at best, weak correlations between workers' safety climate scores and the company CSAP scores, with marginal statistical significance with two groupings of the data. There were also no significant differences between the manager-assessed safety climate and the worker-assessed safety climate scores.

CONCLUSIONS

A CSAP safety performance score does not appear to capture safety climate, as measured in this study. The nature of safety climate in construction is complex, which may be reflective of the challenges in measuring safety climate within this industry. Am. J. Ind. Med. 56:1463-1472, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Determining Safety Inspection Thresholds for Employee Incentives Programs on Construction Sites

The goal of this project was to evaluate approaches of determining the numerical value of a safety inspection score that would activate a reward in an employee safety incentive program. Safety inspections are a reflection of the physical working conditions at a construction site and provide a safety score that can be used in incentive programs to reward workers. Yet it is unclear what level of safety should be used when implementing this kind of program. This study explored five ways of grouping safety inspection data collected during 19 months at Harvard University-owned construction projects. Each approach grouped the data by one of the following: owner, general contractor, project, trade, or subcontractor. The median value for each grouping provided the threshold score. These five approaches were then applied to data from a completed project in order to calculate the frequency and distribution of rewards in a monthly safety incentive program. The application of each approach was evaluated qualitatively for consistency, competitiveness, attainability, and fairness. The owner-specific approach resulted in a threshold score of 96.3% and met all of the qualitative evaluation goals. It had the most competitive reward distribution (only 1/3 of the project duration) yet it was also attainable. By treating all workers equally and maintaining the same value throughout the project duration, this approach was fair and consistent. The owner-based approach for threshold determination can be used by owners or general contractors when creating leading indicator incentives programs and by researchers in future studies on incentive program effectiveness.

Social marketing to plan a fall prevention program for Latino construction workers

BACKGROUND

Latino construction workers experience disparities in occupational death and injury rates. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration funded a fall prevention training program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in response to sharp increases in fall-related accidents from 2005 to 2007. The grant's purpose was to improve fall protection for construction workers, with a focus on Latinos. This study assessed the effectiveness of social marketing for increasing fall prevention behaviors.

METHODS

A multi-disciplinary team used a social marketing approach to plan the program. We conducted same day class evaluations and follow-up interviews 8 weeks later.

RESULTS

The classes met trainee needs as evidenced by class evaluations and increased safety behaviors. However, Spanish-speaking Latinos did not attend in the same proportion as their representation in the Las Vegas population.

CONCLUSIONS

A social marketing approach to planning was helpful to customize the training to Latino worker needs. However, due to the limitations of behavior change strategies, future programs should target employers and their obligation to provide safer workplaces.

Supervisor vs. employee safety perceptions and association with future injury in US limited-service restaurant workers

OBJECTIVES

Many studies have found management commitment to safety to be an important construct of safety climate. This study examined the association between supervisor and employee (shared and individual) perceptions of management commitment to safety and the rate of future injuries in limited-service restaurant workers.

METHODS

A total of 453 participants (34 supervisors/managers and 419 employees) from 34 limited-service restaurants participated in a prospective cohort study. Employees' and managers' perceptions of management commitment to safety and demographic variables were collected at the baseline. The survey questions were made available in three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese. For the following 12 weeks, participants reported their injury experience and weekly work hours. A multivariate negative binomial generalized estimating equation model with compound symmetry covariance structure was used to assess the association between the rate of self-reported injuries and measures of safety perceptions.

RESULTS

There were no significant relationships between supervisor and either individual or shared employee perceptions of management commitment to safety. Only individual employee perceptions were significantly associated with future employee injury experience but not supervisor safety perceptions or shared employee perceptions.

CONCLUSION

Individual employee perception of management commitment to safety is a significant predictor for future injuries in restaurant environments. A study focusing on employee perceptions would be more predictive of injury outcomes than supervisor/manager perceptions.

Safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations: antecedents and consequences of safety behaviour

The occupational health and safety standard OHSAS 18001 has gained considerable acceptance worldwide, and firms from diverse sectors and of varying sizes have implemented it. Despite this, very few studies have analysed safety management or the safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations. The current work aims to analyse the safety climate in these organisations, identify its dimensions, and propose and test a structural equation model that will help determine the antecedents and consequences of employees' safety behaviour. For this purpose, the authors carry out an empirical study using a sample of 131 OHSAS 18001-certified organisations located in Spain. The results show that management's commitment, and particularly communication, have an effect on safety behaviour and on safety performance, employee satisfaction, and firm competitiveness. These findings are particularly important for management since they provide evidence about the factors that should be encouraged to reduce risks and improve performance in this type of organisation.

Trench Safety-Using a Qualitative Approach to Understand Barriers and Develop Strategies to Improve Trenching Practices

Despite efforts to ensure workplace safety and health, injuries and fatalities related to trenching and excavation remain alarmingly high in the construction industry. Because properly installed trenching protective systems can potentially reduce the significant number of trenching fatalities, there is clearly a need to identify the barriers to the use of these systems and to develop strategies to ensure these systems are utilized consistently. The current study reports on the results of focus groups with construction workers and safety management personnel to better understand these barriers and to identify solutions. The results suggest several factors, from poor planning to pressures from experienced workers and supervisors, which present barriers to safe trenching practices. Based on the results, it is recommended that safety trainings incorporate unique messages for new workers, experienced workers and management in an effort to motivate each group to work safely as well as provide them with solutions to overcome the identified barriers.

Health disparities among occupations in Taiwan: a population study

OBJECTIVES

The first large-scale population survey was conducted in Taiwan to examine if and to what extent health disparities of four major chronic physical conditions exist among occupations.

METHODS

Face-to-face interviews about two risk behaviors (i.e., cigarette and alcohol use) and four major chronic physical conditions (i.e., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver disease and asthma) were conducted with 13,741 workers from nine major categories of occupations.

RESULTS

Health disparities among occupations were found based on a series of hierarchical logistic regression analyses after controlling for age, sex and two risk behaviors. In general, prevalence rates of cardiovascular disease among elementary occupations and skilled agricultural and fishery workers were approximately two to four times higher than those among other occupations. The above two occupations and plant and machine operators also had higher prevalence rates in diabetes and liver disease.

CONCLUSIONS

The results concerning health disparities among occupations provide policymakers and researchers with invaluable benchmarks of chronic physical conditions among occupations. The findings also suggest the importance of investigating causal relationship between these diseases and exposures at work, identifying and reducing unique risk factors and hazard exposures experienced by workers and conducting targeted surveillance and health promotion programs for at-risk occupations.