Synthesis and recommendations of the economic evaluation of OHS interventions at the company level conference

PROBLEM: In today's economic environment, enterprises may not be able to fund every new project aimed at promoting health and safety in the workplace. Company level economic evaluation of interventions can provide guidance in sound business decision-making. The Economic Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Interventions at the Company Level Meeting brought together members of the global occupational safety and health community interested in encouraging the use of economic knowledge and tools to evaluate economic gains from occupational health and safety interventions. DISCUSSION: Discussions of the six models presented explored similarities, reliability, and potential use by corporate enterprises, small and medium enterprises, developing and transitioning nations, and economic theorists. Each group provided specific projects that could be pursued to advance knowledge in the area of economic evaluation at the company level. CONCLUSION: This conference established pathway to incorporate economic evaluation of health and safety interventions or programs at the workplace.     

GAP—a fault-tree based methodology for analyzing occupational hazards

Occupational accidents are stochastic events. The moment of their occurrence cannot be predicted. However, their rate of occurrence may be reduced, albeit not to zero. Considerable effort has been invested into this objective. This led to decreasing numbers of accidents over the years, a tendency which seems, however, to have come to a standstill since approximately 1998. The potential of presently used methods like check lists or HAZOP-based approaches for evaluating and producing recommendations for reducing occupational hazards has apparently been exhausted. Hence, further improvement of the injury rates is expected only from the use of in-depth analysis methods. Therefore, fault tree analysis is applied to occupational safety. This leads to the formulation of the hazard base model and its representation by means of an occupational hazard tree. This tree serves as an example for the assessment of occupational hazards of work places and activities. The characteristic feature of the occupational hazard tree is the decomposition of the undesired event ‘injury’ into basic events. These are qualified verbally using the expressions ‘certain/permanently’, ‘impossible/never’, ‘probable/frequently’, ‘possible/occasionally’, ‘improbable/rarely’. The procedure is implemented in the program GAP (HazardAnalysisProgram), which enables one to generate and evaluate occupational hazard trees. A global verbal assessment of a workplace or an activity is then obtained. On its basis weaknesses of the occupational safety concept are identified, appropriate countermeasures are devised, they are prioritized and their efficiency is valuated. The procedure was successfully tested by analyzing two accidents and assessing a workplace at a major industrial firm.     

The effect of first aid training on Australian construction workers' occupational health and safety motivation and risk control behavior

METHOD: A 24-week experiment was conducted to assess how first aid training affects the motivation of small business construction industry employees in avoiding occupational injuries and illnesses and its effect on their occupational health and safety behavior. A simplified multiple baseline design across workplace settings was used to evaluate the effects of first aid training. Participants' motivation to control occupational safety and health risks was explored during in-depth interviews before and after receipt of first aid training. Objective measurement of occupational safety and health behavior was conducted by a researcher directly observing the workplace before and after participants received first aid training. RESULTS: The observations at participants' worksites suggested that, for the most part, the first aid training had a positive effect on the occupational safety and health behavior of participants. First aid training appeared to reduce participants' "self--other" bias, making them more aware that their own experience of occupational safety and health risks is not beyond their control but that their own behavior is an important factor in the avoidance of occupational injury and illness. First aid training also appeared to reduce participants' willingness to accept prevailing levels of occupational safety and health risk and increase the perceived probability that they would suffer a work-related injury or illness. Participants expressed greater concern about taking risks at work after receiving first aid training. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: It appears that first aid training enhances participants' motivation to avoid occupational injuries and illnesses and improves their risk control behavior. The implications of this are that first aid training can have a positive preventive effect and could complement traditional occupational health and safety training programs. As such, there may be benefit in providing first aid training to all employees rather than limiting this training to a small number of designated "first aiders."     

The unequal distribution of occupational health and safety risks among immigrants to Canada compared to Canadian-born labour market participants: 1993–2005

ObjectivesTo examine the prevalence of occupational health and safety risk factors among immigrants to Canada compared to Canadian-born labour force participants.MethodsUsing data from Statistic Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, we examined the differential probabilities of six different occupational health and safety risks: non-membership in a union or collective bargaining agreement; employment in physically demanding occupations; employment in a workplace with less than 20 employees; regular shift work; irregular shift work; and having non-permanent employment. Our main independent variables were length of time in Canada, visible minority status, mother tongue, and location where highest level of education was attained. Models were adjusted for age, gender, education, marital status, province of residence, living in an urban or rural location, and industry group.ResultsOf the six occupational health and safety risks examined we found that our main independent variables describing aspects of immigration status were associated with five; the exception being irregular shift work. Adjustment for industry did not attenuate these relationships to a large extent.ConclusionsImmigrants to Canada are faced with many occupational health and safety risks compared to Canadian-born respondents. These risks may be heightened among immigrants as they may not have knowledge of workplace rights and protections or have problems communicating health and safety risks or concerns. The timely provision information on occupational health and safety to immigrants before they start working should be a priority as they integrate into the Canadian labour market.     

作业场所职业病危害因素检测与评价信息化管理系统的应用

通过应用信息化网络技术,建立了作业场所职业病危害因素检测与评价数据库,实现了用人单位作业场所有害因素检测与评价数据的申报、传递、编制、审核、报告打印、统计等功能。信息化模板的建立,降低了职业卫生学调查工作难度,方便了检测方案和报告编辑,统一了作业场所职业病危害因素检测与评价报告书生成格式,并自动生成职业病危害因素检测与评价报告书,提高了作业场所职业病危害因素检测与评价工作的质量。本系统具有操作简易、处理功能强大、内部监督管理完善等特点,实现作业场所职业病危害因素检测与评价信息管理科学化、规范化、信息化,降低了劳动强度,提高了工作效率,有很好的应用价值,尤其适合现阶段基层职业卫生工作的需要。     

安全评价模式的建立

论述了安全评价模式建立的意义,提出了安全评价模式的概念,建立了安全评价的基本模式.建立的安全评价的基本模式主要由危险源辨识、评价和控制3部分组成.在辨识危险源之后,应分别从设备、单元危险性、作业条件危险性、职业卫生、工艺危险性5个方面入手对危险源进行定性定量评价,以便于选择合适的评价方法.职业安全卫生检测检验也是进行安全评价的重要组成部分,不同的评价对象,其职业安全卫生检测检验的内容也不同.在完成上述工作的基础上,根据评价和分析结果提出安全对策措施.指出了当前我国安全和卫生管理体制所存在的弊端,分析了把职业安全和职业卫生结合在一起由一个政府部门进行监督管理的重要性,从而便于实现安全卫生管理工作的标准化、规范化.     

The reality of “Revitalizing Health and Safety”

Problem: Workplace health and safety remains an important international socioeconomic issue, but the progressive declines in reported incidents may be slowing. The British Government has responded by launching a new policy initiative aimed at “Revitalizing Health and Safety” by establishing targets for improvement, strategies, and a series of action points, mainly targeting employers and organizational issues. This paper critically assesses the realities of implementing this policy with respect to the scientific base for each of the strategies. Method: Literature meta-analysis; analysis of policy. Results: Empirically proven determinants of workplace health and safety provide baselines for compensation and conditions of work, workforce characteristics, workplace characteristics, health and safety environment, political and economic factors, and industry characteristics. Support for different policy elements is varied and there are some significant gaps. Summary: An impressive body of research was found that offers a firm foundation for future developments. However, the need for work that is interdisciplinary, ordered, and collaborative is pressing. The need to move away from elegant but simplistic pictures of occupational health and safety (OHS) management practice, and to reflect true complexity is imperative. The reality of health and safety at work is that it is an issue that is taken lightly by those who do not practice or research safe and healthy working, and a serious issue for victims or relatives of victims of shoddy management. It remains one of the bastions of inequality of work worldwide. Impact on industry: The intent of governments in attempting to reinvigorate the suppression of workplace injury and illness is motivated by both social and economic imperatives. Motivation for organizations is not fully understood as there is no obvious business imperative. If organizations can further understand and provide a scientific justification for investment in OHS management, then governments' task will be made easier. By proving the value of OHS to management, we will demonstrate that organizations continue to present considerable hazards to their employees.     

基于Fuzzy模型的职业病危害综合风险评估方法研究

为有效评估作业场所职业病危害的风险大小,研究职业病危害综合风险评估方法。在综合考虑作业场所职业病危害的固有危害特征、接触特征、防护特征和健康影响特征等风险影响因素的基础上,采用层次分析和专家咨询法筛选和建立了职业病危害综合风险评价指标体系,研究制定了各评价指标的分级评价准则,利用模糊数学理论,构建了基于Fuzzy模型的职业病危害综合风险评价模型。该方法可以对职业病危害的综合风险进行评估,并能够确定风险控制的优先权,避免了传统单一指标评价的局限性,对职业病危害评价工作具有一定借鉴意义。     

An illusion of objectivity in workplace investigation: The cause analysis chart and consistency,accuracy, and bias in judgments

Introduction: Investigation tools used in occupational health and safety events need to support evidence-based judgments, especially when employed within biasing contexts, yet these tools are rarely empirically vetted. A common workplace investigation tool, dubbed for this study the “Cause Analysis (CA) Chart,” is a checklist on which investigators select substandard actions and conditions that apparently contributed to a workplace event. This research tests whether the CA Chart supports quality investigative judgments. Method: Professional and undergraduate participants engaged in a simulated industrial investigation exercise after receiving a file with information indicating that either a worker had an unsafe history, equipment had an unsafe history, or neither had a history of unsafe behavior (control). Participants then navigated an evidence database and used either the CA Chart or an open-ended form to make judgments about event cause. Results: The use of the CA Chart negatively affected participants' information seeking and judgments. Participants using the CA Chart were less accurate in identifying the causes of the incident and were biased to report that the worker was more causal for the event. Professionals who used the CA Chart explored fewer pieces of evidence than those in the open-ended condition. Moreover, neither the open-ended form nor the structured CA Chart mitigated the biasing effects of historical information about safety on participants' judgments. Conclusion: Use of the CA Chart resulted in judgments about event cause that were less accurate and also biased towards worker responsibility. The CA Chart was not an effective debiasing tool. Practical application: Our results have implications for occupational health and safety given the popular nature of checklist tools like the CA Chart in workplace investigation. This study contributes to the literature stating that we need to be scientific in the development of investigative tools and methods.     

企业职业卫生综合风险管理评估体系的研究与应用

为了能够全面、客观地评估企业职业卫生风险管理质量,利用美国EPA吸入风险评估模型、新加坡化学物职业暴露半定量风险评估模型以及风险指数评估模型,对作业场所存在的职业病危害因素进行风险水平评估,并结合企业职业卫生管理评估模型,对企业职业卫生管理水平进行定量评估,以风险等级和管理水平,综合判断企业职业卫生风险水平。将该体系应用于实例分析,结果表明:体系在充分考虑企业职业病危害因素时空分布以及企业管理现状的基础上,能够定量评估职业病危害因素的急慢性影响以及企业职业卫生管理水平。     

基于风险等值线的职业安全评价分级方法

依据危害因素引发工伤、职业危害事件的后果严重度和可能性来开展职业安全评价,在严重度和可能性的定量评价基础上,引入等值风险线的概念,建立风险评价分级方法,并在单一危害因素的职业安全评价基础上建立了作业场所、工厂、企业的职业安全(风险)评价分级方法.通过应用实例分析,验证了该方法的可操作性.     

Risk assessment: an approach to control hazards in mines

Accidents and injuries related to work are major occupational health problems in most of the industrialized countries.Traditional approaches to manage workplace safety in mines have mainly focused on job redesign and technical aspects of engineering systems.It is being realized that compliance to rules and regulations of mines is a prerequisite;however,it is not sufficient to achieve further reduction in accident and injury rates in mines.Proactive approaches are necessary to further improve the safety standards in mines.Unsafe conditions and practices in mines lead to a number of accidents,which in turn may cause loss and injury to human lives,damages to property,and loss of production.Hazard identification and risk assessment is an important task for the mining industry which needs to consider all the risk factors at workplaces.Applications of risk management approaches in mines are necessary to identify and quantify potential hazards and to suggest effective solutions.In this paper,the following risk estimation techniques were discussed:(i)DGMS(Directorate General of Mines Safety,India)risk rating criterion,and(ii)a matrix based approach.The proposed tools were demonstrated through an application in an opencast coal mine in India.It was inferred that the risk assessment approach can be used as an effective tool to indentify and control hazards in mines.     

Occupational risk assessment in construction industry – Overview and reflection

The construction industry is plagued by occupational risky situations and poor working conditions. Occupational risk assessment (ORA) on workplace sites is the first and key step to achieve adequate safety levels, particularly to support decision-making in safety programs. Most construction safety efforts are applied informally under the premise that simply allocating more resources to safety management will improve safety on site. Moreover, there are many traditional methods to address ORA, but few have been adapted and validated for use in the construction industry, particularly in the design stage, for which traditional approaches do not give adequate answers. This paper presents a state-of-the-art on ORA traditional methods, for the construction industry, discussing their limitations and pointing advantages of using fuzzy sets approaches to deal with ill-defined situations.     

A qualitative investigation of factors affecting school district administrators’ decision to adopt a national young worker curriculum

Introduction: Even though the majority of youth in the U.S. work, and workers under the age of 18 are seriously injured on the job at higher rates when compared to adults, most adolescents lack instruction on workplace safety and health. Method: This qualitative study examines the extent to which selected U.S. school districts provide workplace safety and health instruction to students and explores the factors that influence districts’ decision to adopt a free, foundational occupational safety and health (OSH) curriculum. Results: Results from key informant interviews conducted with a purposive sample of 34 school administrators revealed that only a third of the districts have at least 75% of their students receive some instruction on workplace safety and health, while 15% indicated they provide no instruction on this topic. District staff who indicated that they provide OSH instruction stated that it is most often taught through career and technical education (CTE; 65%) and/or health classes (26%). They believed the benefits of providing this instruction include assisting students to get jobs (38%) and helping students learn about safety (32%), while competing demands (44%) and time constraints (41%) were identified as barriers to providing OSH education to students. Conclusions: Given the importance of work to teens and their increased risk of work injury, interested stakeholders—including parents, teachers, employers, and the public health community—should promote the inclusion of workplace safety and health instruction in U.S. secondary schools. Practical Applications: This research fills a gap in current knowledge about the extent to which OSH is currently taught within U.S. secondary schools, enumerates barriers and facilitators to the inclusion of workplace safety and health instruction in schools, presents a free, foundational curriculum in workplace safety and health, and provides directions for future research on the vital role schools can play in preparing the future workforce for safe and healthy employment.     

A process mapping model for calculating indirect costs of workplace accidents

This article follows an earlier one in which four criteria and four bases for the development of an indirect-cost calculation model adapted to the accuracy requirements and time constraints of workplace decision-makers were established. A two-level model for calculating indirect costs using process mapping of the organizational response to a workplace accident is presented. The model is based on data collected in interviews with those employees in charge of occupational health and safety in 10 companies of various sizes in different industry sectors. This model is the first to use process mapping to establish the indirect costs of workplace accidents. The approach allows easy identification of the duration and frequency of actions taken by stakeholders when a workplace accident occurs, facilitates the collection of the information needed to calculate indirect costs and yields a usable, precise result. A simple graphic representation of an organization's accident processes helps the user understand each accident's cost components, allowing the identification and reduction of inefficiencies in the overall process. Impact on Industry: By facilitating data collection and shortening the time needed to assess indirect costs of workplace accidents, this indirect cost calculation tool is better suited for workplace use than those currently available.     

A new training specification for workplace health promotion

The field of workplace health promotion has seen developments of concepts, practice and interest in recent years. However, recent EC wide research has pointed to problems which constrain its development. These include a lack of awareness amongst the major players who are in a position to implement workplace health promotion, difficulties in transmitting the concept of and organising genuine inter-disciplinary approaches to workplace health promotion, and a lack of training courses in the area.This paper describes a project to develop a training specification for workplace health promotion targeted at a range of professional and non-professional groups. These include occupational physicians and nurses, safety engineers, personnel managers, health and safety representatives and others.The project has developed a modular training specification — each trainee group can undertake all modules to an appropriate level of detail. It focuses on two broad areas — the health promotion process and the roles necessary to support that process. The first area defines an idealised health promotion process, which has been divided into 7 phases, while the second area outlines 6 principal roles in relation to interacting with that process. Future work will see the implementation of the training specification in a number of test sites.     

Facilitators and barriers to occupational health and safety in small and medium-sized enterprises: a descriptive exploratory study in Ontario,Canada

Purpose. The purpose of this particular study was to test a newly created instrument in describing the facilitators and barriers to occupational health and safety in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ontario, Canada. Methods. A cross-sectional design was used to identify the occupational health and safety culture of SMEs in public and private sectors in Ontario. Results. A total of 153 questionnaires were completed. The majority of respondents were female (84%) with a mean age of 49.8 years (SD 10.6). Seventy-four percent were supervisors. Seventy percent of respondents were from the private sector while 30% derived from the public sector including healthcare, community services, and non-profit organizations. Further, conducting regular external safety inspections of the workplace was found to be statistically associated with a safe work environment 2.88 95% CI [1.57, 5.27]. Conclusions. Strategies and training opportunities that focus on how to adapt occupational health and safety legislation to the nature and diversity of SMEs are recommended. Furthermore, employers may use such information to improve safety in their SMEs, while researchers can hopefully use such evidence to develop interventions that are applicable to meeting the occupational health and safety needs of SMEs.     

Occupational and public health and safety in a changing work environment: An integrated approach for risk assessment and prevention

During recent years the work environment has undergone significant changes regarding working time, years of employment, work organization, type of employment contracts and working conditions. In this paper, consequences of these changes on occupational and public health and safety are examined. These include the disruption of human biological rhythms, the increase of workers fatigue due to changes in patterns of working hours and years of employment, job insecurity and occupational stress, which have a serious impact on workers’ health and may result in an increase in occupational accidents. Unsafe work practices related to workload and time pressure, the impact of work changes on public safety and the deterioration of workers’ living conditions with respect to income, social-family life, health and insurance benefits, are also described. In this context, difficulties that occur due to the changing work environment in conducting effective occupational risk assessments and implementing OSH measures are discussed (for example, frequent changes between tasks and workplaces, underreporting of occupational accidents and diseases, lack of methodological tools, etc.). A fundamental criterion used while studying consequences on health and safety and the relative preventive measures is that health and safety must be approached as ‘the promotion and maintenance at the highest degree of the physical, mental and social well-being of workers’ and not only as retention of their work ability. Limits in combining “flexibility” at work and overall protection of occupational and public safety and health in a competitive market are put forward for discussion.     

Weighing the pig never made it heavier: Auditing OHS,social auditing as verification of process in Australia

South Australian organizations assess their OHSMS through audits as evidence of risk control and to help make workplaces healthy and safe. Auditing is an evaluative process regarded as an important step in the cycle of continuous improvement in OHS. Auditing began with financial audits conducted for reasons of corporate governance: for accountability, to inform management decisions and to provide market confidence. Society expects audits to be a tool of regulation, governance and accountability, but celebrated failures of audits to warn of impending financial collapse in organizations in recent years appears to have led to an increased fervour for auditing, rather than a decline. Social audits, including auditing of OHSMS, are intended to determine that an organization is meeting its corporate social responsibilities; but what is audited is often contested and requires subjective analysis. Financial and social audits are subject to failure: unintentional errors, deliberate fraud, financial interests causing undue influence, and undue influence from personal relationships between the auditor and client. We identify five further categories of failure: lack of worker participation; paperwork for the sake of the audit; goal displacement of audit scoring; confusion of audit criteria; and lack of auditor independence and skill. There has been a shift in focus: the current demand and preparation for auditing distracts organizations from the primary goal of making the workplace healthy and safe. We argue that auditing OHSMS has become a ritual rather than a means of improving workplace health and safety and should at least be treated with caution.