When workplace safety depends on behavior change: Topics for behavioral safety research

Introduction

Comprehensive interventions that address public-health concerns invariably include behavior-change strategies. In occupational safety and health, behavioral safety is an approach designed to improve safety performance directly through peer observations of safe behaviors, goal setting, performance feedback, and celebrations or incentives for reaching safety goals. Although the basic components of behavioral safety processes have been studied and widely documented, the current safety literature reveals several gaps in knowledge. These gaps are associated mostly with wide practice variations among the common process elements and uncertainty about the influence of organizational and other external factors.

Impact to Industry

A major objective of this paper was to highlight not only key topic areas that warrant further research, but also to propose a list of research questions that are tied to uncertainties about various intervention practices. If only a portion of these topic areas and research questions are addressed through systematic reviews, field interventions, surveys, and laboratory-based studies, then the knowledge gained will significantly improve the delivery and effectiveness of behavioral safety interventions and thus their impact on worker health and safety.     

Gas bursts from cameroon crater lakes: a new natural hazard

Gas bursts from tropical crater lakes constitute a hitherto unrecognized natural hazard, which claimed 37 lives around Lake Monoun in 1984 and 1,746 lives in 1986 around Lake Nyos in Cameroon, west Africa. Studies of these events indicate that the lethal gas clouds were dominantly CO(2) which exsolved catastrophically from deep waters of the lakes, producing in the case of Lake Nyos a gas cloud of 1.94 times 10(6) tons CO(2) . Carbon-isotope data indicate a magmatic source of the carbon dioxide, but the geochemistry of deep water and gases does not support a sudden injection of volcanic gas from a deep source into the lakes. Rather, it is proposed that the gas bursts were preceded by gradual build-up of dissolved bicarbonate in deep waters, where anoxic conditions in enclosed and stagnant basins led to low pH and pCO(2) close to saturation. Steady input from the Earth's mantle to submerged mofettes or CO(2) -rich soda springs within the lakes is most likely the primary source of carbon dioxide. Lethal effects of the gas bursts are almost entirely due to CO(2) -induced asphyxia. A small percentage of victims awoke from coma one or two days after the event, but most died. Unusual skin lesions on about 5% of victims arose from the comatose state. It is shown that the mass of gas required to account for the lethal effects and observed gas clouds is an order of magnitude less than the potential gas yield from the lakes. In view of the lethal gas bursts from the small Cameroon lakes, the potential hazard of future gas bursts from other much larger density-stratified equatorial lakes must be seriously considered, particularly in Lake Kivu in east Africa, where methane and carbon dioxide gas content is higher by two to four orders of magnitude than that of the Cameroon lakes. A gas burst from Lake Kivu would form a carbon dioxide cloud up to 340 km(3) in volume and expansion of the exsolving gas from deep water to atmospheric pressure would correspond to an energy release equivalent to 8 megatons of explosive.     

Environmental Services Provided from Riparian Forests in the Nordic Countries

Riparian forests (RF) growing along streams, rivers and lakes comprise more than 2% of the forest area in the Nordic countries (considering a 10 m wide zone from the water body). They have special ecological functions in the landscape. They receive water and nutrients from the upslope areas, are important habitats for biodiversity, have large soil carbon stores, but may emit more greenhouse gases (GHG) than the uplands. In this article, we present a review of the environmental services related to water protection, terrestrial biodiversity, carbon storage and greenhouse gas dynamics provided by RF in the Nordic countries. We discuss the benefits and trade-offs when leaving the RF as a buffer against the impacts from upland forest management, in particular the impacts of clear cutting. Forest buffers are effective in protecting water quality and aquatic life, and have positive effects on terrestrial biodiversity, particularly when broader than 40 m, whereas the effect on the greenhouse gas exchange is unclear.     

Motivating ergonomic computer workstation setup: sometimes training is not enough

Musculoskeletal disorders lead to pain and suffering and result in high costs to industry. There is evidence to suggest that whereas conventional ergonomics training programs result in knowledge gains, they may not necessarily translate to changes in behavior. There were 11 participants in an ergonomics training program, and a subsample of participants received a motivational intervention in the form of incentives for correct workstation setup. Training did not yield any changes in ergonomics measures for any participant. Incentives resulted in marked and durable changes in targeted workstation measures. The data suggest that improving worker knowledge about ergonomically correct workstation setup does not necessarily lead to correct workstation setup, and that motivational interventions may be needed to achieve lasting behavior change.     

Volcanic disasters in Latin America and the 13th November 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia

Volcanic eruptions in Latin America have claimed about 61,000 lives since 1600 A.D. and the region's volcanoes are responsible for about a quarter of the world's fatalities from this type of hazard. Nearly all loss of life from volcanism in Latin America is due to pyroclastic surges, pyroclastic flows and lahars or volcanic mudflows. Lahars generated during the 13th November, 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia claimed 25,000 lives, underscoring the great hazard from lahars, which can be generated from the fifty-six, active, ice-capped Central and South American volcanoes during even very small eruptions. The probability of specific prediction of the timing of such events is currently low, whereas the probability of a general prediction of volcanic eruption is high, giving sufficient time to install telemetered lahar alarm systems, which could largely avoid the loss of life.