Educational status and organizational safety climate: Does educational attainment influence workers’ perceptions of workplace safety?

From a practical perspective, understanding the impact of education on perceptions of workplace safety would benefit management’s decisions regarding workers’ adaptability, general work effectiveness, accident frequency, implementation of safety management policies, and handling of education-related accident characteristics. The current study thus examined the relationship between educational attainment and (i) safety perception, (ii) job satisfaction, (iii) compliance with safety management policies, and (iv) accident frequency. Participants were Ghanaian industrial workers (N = 320) categorized into four educational groups based on their responses: basic education 50% (n = 159); secondary education, n = 98 (30%); vocational/professional education, 17% (n = 56); and university education, 3% (n = 7). Workplace safety perception was assessed with Hayes et al.’s 50-item Work Safety Scale (WSS): a scale that effectively captures the dimensions identified by safety experts to influence perceptions of workplace safety. Multivariate analysis (MANOVA) was used to test for differences of statistical significance. Posterior comparison with t-test consistently revealed significant differences between the two higher-educated cohorts and their lower-educated counterparts. The results indicated a positive association between education and safety perception. Higher-educated workers recorded the best perceptions on safety, indicated the highest level of job satisfaction, were the most compliant with safety procedures and recorded the lowest accident involvement rate.     

Epidemiology of occupational accidents among Iranian insured workers

Work-related accidents are considered as a major health problem worldwide. The aim of present study was to determine the epidemiological pattern of occupational accidents among workers insured by the Iranian Social Security Organization (ISSO) between 2001 and 2005.Subjects consisted of all workers and drivers who had a work-related accident during 2001–2005 and were registered in the Iranian Social Security Organization (ISSO) database according to the inspection reports. An ordinal logistic regression model (proportional odds regression model) was used to assess the concurrent effects of independent variables on accident outcomes.Overall, 86,437 work-related accidents were investigated. The accidents were more frequent in metal workplaces and electrical industries, respectively. More than half of the accidents were due to incautious activities. Workers’ age (age at the time of accident) (OR = 0.99, CI: 0.989–0.994), gender (OR = 1.3, CI: 1.191–1.683), marital status (OR = 1.25, CI: 1.143–1.675) as well as accident setting (OR = 1.88, CI: 1.728–1.975) had significant effect on accident outcomes. Pattern of occupational injuries in Iran was consistent with the global pattern for accident outcomes.     

Managers’ attitudes towards safety measures in the commercial road transport sector

Safety measures and related costs and benefits have been widely discussed and analysed in academic circles and by the authorities and industrial sectors. The study reported in this paper addresses these aspects from a cognitive based perspective. Risk management is about dealing with the conflict between production and safety. Enterprises which spend too much on safety will meet bankruptcy, and those not concerned with safety measures will meet with severe accidents and related damage. Inspired by James Reason’s theoretical framework, managers (n = 106) of commercial transport enterprises were asked about their attitudes towards safety management, what factors have contributed and their belief that further effort and investments in health, environment and safety (HES) measures will pay off. One half of the managers perceive HES work as too expensive and approximately one quarter assess mandatory HES work as compromising their competitiveness. One third of the managers do not find further safety measures than those already implemented necessary or remunerative. They claim that there are no other alternative ways of doing their activities and that there are no technical measures available that could meet outstanding safety challenges. Managers do acknowledge HES work as important for the reputation of the enterprise. The factor analysis gave five HES attitude factors: (I) concerned with formalities, (II) HES work improves health, environment and safety, (III) HES work is ineffective, (IV) HES regulation is appropriate, and (V) HES work can be improved.     

The correlation between gradients of descending roads and accident rates

The traffic accident rate on descending roads on mountainous highways is quite high. To study the effects of vertical gradient and length of road on traffic accidents on continuous descending roads, data from 1413 traffic accidents over an 85.43 km section of road were collected. By taking parameters such as the gradients in accident sites, and taking the average gradient in N km (N = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) just prior to the accident sites as the profile parameter, scatter diagrams were drawn to explore the effects of the profile parameters on the distribution of traffic accidents. Analysis of the exponential regression and correlation analysis between accident rates and profile parameters was carried out as well. The research results show that the accident rate increases with average vertical gradient exponentially; the differences between accident rate and different profile parameters are significant; the accident rate has a good exponential relationship with average gradients when a section has a 2 km or 3 km slope just prior to the accident sites i.e. the accident rate at a specific section on a continuous descending road is related to the average gradient in 2–3 km descending sections just prior to the accident site. The findings indicate that a steep gradient alone is not the reason for an accident, but we also have to take into consideration the presence of a “continuous long” descent prior to it.     

基于行为安全理论的化工事故统计及分析

行为安全理论是事故分析和预防的理论和方法,应用基于行为安全理论的事故致因“2-4”模型对10起化工事故的直接、间接、根本、根源原因进行分析。结果表明:该模型是化工事故分析的有效方法。10起事故的直接原因主要为一线员工在涉及高温加热工艺、带压设备、有毒有害环境和动火作业中的违规违章操作,管理人员未建立或运行安全管理体系等不安全动作及不安全物态,且不安全物态与管理人员不安全行为有关;间接原因是一线员工缺乏岗位安全操作等知识,管理人员缺乏安全管理、技术等知识,导致其安全意识薄弱,养成不良的安全习惯;根本原因是组织安全教育等管理程序缺失和执行不力;根源原因是组织成员对安全的重要度等安全文化元素缺乏理解。     

Stochastic modeling of accident risks associated with an underground coal mine in Turkey

In this study, a methodology is proposed towards development of an uncertainty model that includes randomness in the occurrence of days-lost accidents in a coal mine. The accident/injury data consists of 1390 days-lost accident cases recorded at GLI-Tuncbilek underground lignite mine from January 1994 to December 2002. In the first step of proposed methodology, the frequency and the severity of the accidents have been modeled statistically by fitting appropriate distributions. The test done by BestFit software yields a chi-square value of 21.53 (p = 0.089) with 14 degrees of freedom and estimates the parameter of lambda for Poisson distribution as 12.87 accidents/month. For the severity component, a lognormal distribution is fitted to days-lost data and chi-square goodness-of-fit test calculates a value of 40.44 (p = 0.097) with 30 degrees of freedom. The parameters of lognormal distribution are estimated as a mean of 14.3 days and standard deviation of 23.1 days, respectively. Then, two distributions are basically combined by Monte Carlo simulation in order to construct relative risk levels in yearly base referring to the final cumulative distribution. Finally, a simple forecasting modeling is carried out in order to quantitatively predict the expected risk levels by using decomposition technique in time series analysis. Stochastic model estimates that although, there would be substantial reduction in the expected number of accidents in the near future, the higher level of risks still should be a concern for the mine management.     

安全认知观念的研究与决策分析

通过分析当前石油石化企业发生的事故数据,发现由于人为因素造成的事故时有发生,给企业安全生产造成重大影响。为了深入了解造成事故发生的人为因素产生根源,笔者通过多种方式获取资料,利用系统论研究方法,得出了企业员工和管理者普遍存在的安全认知观念。在此基础上,提出员工和管理者之间推荐的共同安全认知观念,从观念上让员工和管理者对不安全行为形成一致的认知,并在减少员工不安全行为、规范员工的安全行为方面给出了行之有效的解决方法,即在企业推行行为安全管理工具-HSE观察卡。应用结果表明,通过推行HSE观察卡,可有效提高企业员工在现场作业活动中的安全作业意识,从而避免或减少由于人的不安全行为造成事故发生率,提升了企业安全生产水平。     

How perceptions of experience-based analysis influence explanations of work accidents

IntroductionThis article looks into how perceptions of experience-based analysis (EBA) influence causal explanations of accidents given by managers and workers in the chemical industry (n = 409) and in the nuclear industry (n = 222).MethodThe approach is based on the model of naive explanations of accidents (Kouabenan, 1999, 2006, 2009), which recommends taking into account explanations of accidents spontaneously given by individuals, including laypersons, not only to better understand why accidents occur but also to design and implement the most appropriate prevention measures. The study reported here describes the impact of perceptions about EBA (perceived effectiveness, personal commitment, and the feeling of being involved in EBA practices) on managers' and workers' explanations of accidents likely to occur at the workplace.ResultsThe results indicated that both managers and workers made more internal explanations than external ones when they perceived EBA positively. Moreover, the more the participants felt involved in EBA, were committed to it, and judged it effective, the more they explained accidents in terms of factors internal to the workers. Practical Applications: Recommendations are proposed for reducing defensive reactions, increasing personal commitment to EBA, and improving EBA effectiveness.     

The self-defensive attribution hypothesis in the work environment: Co-workers’ perspectives

The study explored the possible influences of situational, personal and non-relevant perception on causality attributions and responsibility assignment in Ghana’s work environment. Ghanaian industrial workers (co-workers) who were witnesses to industrial accidents (n = 117) assigned causality for the mishap and their responses were compared. Analyses were based on the co-workers’ responses to open-ended questions. Three categories of co-workers were identified and labelled as situationally relevant (n = 34), personally relevant (n = 43) and non-relevant co-workers (n = 40). The results showed that co-workers (witnesses) who had some perception of situational and or personal relevance with the accident victims attributed less responsibility to the accident victims than did their counterparts who had no perception of relevance. This observation, like other motivated attributional distortions, seems to reflect a tendency towards self-protection from the three categories of co-workers. It confirms the self-defensive attribution hypothesis in causal attributions about accidents in the work environment.     

The potential impact of light emitting diode lighting on reducing mining injuries during operation and maintenance of lighting systems

Research by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) indicates that light emitting diodes (LEDs) can be used to enhance safety by improving a miner’s ability to see mining hazards and reducing glare. This paper investigates if LEDs provide another benefit by reducing miner exposure to hazards during maintenance and operation of LED lighting. LEDs could provide useful lives up to 50 times longer than incandescent lighting commonly used in mining and could enable design changes to reduce certain hazards. The mining accident records compiled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) were examined to determine the extent and nature of accidents involving the maintenance and operation of mine luminaries. A total of 140 relevant accident records were found for the years 2002–2006. These incidents resulted in 3668 days lost from work with an additional 925 days of restricted activity. The injury narratives were studied to determine if the implementation of LED-based luminaries could reduce injury severity and frequency. The greatest near-term potential impacts appear to be related to reducing maintenance and cap lamp redesign. Longer term (5 years), low-power and lightweight auxiliary LED lighting for surface mines could also have potential impact for improving safety.     

Agricultural accidents in north eastern region of India

An investigation was conducted to characterize the agricultural accidents, their magnitude, causes, severity and economic consequences in one of the states of north eastern region of India, Arunachal Pradesh. The accident data for 6 years between years 2000 and 2005 were collected by conducting a survey and personal interview of the victims in 42 selected villages of 4 districts. Agricultural accident incident rate was 6.39 per 1000 workers/year. All the accidents were non-fatal. Farm implement-related accidents accounted for 40% of the accidents. Slashing of shrubs accounted for one-third of the accidents causing cut and hit injuries of moderate severity. Twenty-five per cent of the accidents occurred on the way to or from the field leading to severe or serious injuries. Two-third of the accidents occurred within 4 h of start of work. Thirty-three per cent of the victims were 40–49 years of age. Based on the analysis, both passive and active measures have been suggested to minimize or prevent the occurrence of agricultural accidents.     

Cultural and socio-demographic predictors of car accident involvement in Norway,Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda

The prevalence of road traffic accidents is increasing towards endemic proportions in developing countries. The present study investigated cultural and demographic predictors of car accident involvement in a developed country in Europe and three developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The comparison was carried out with questionnaires among a randomly obtained representative sample of the Norwegian population (n = 247) as well as stratified samples in Accra and Cape-Coast in Ghana (n = 299), Dar-es-Salaam and Arusha areas in Tanzania (n = 599), and the central Kampala and the Mbarara district in Uganda (n = 415). Measurement instruments of culture as symbol exchange and destiny orientation were used to predict self-reported road traffic accident involvement by car among the respondents. Demographic characteristics, such as gender, age and education, were also included as predictors of car accidents. The results showed that male gender was the only significant predictor of accident involvement in Norway. Introverted and extroverted culture, destiny orientation and written culture were associated with accident involvement in the African countries. Male gender also predicted accidents in these countries. Non-technical injury preventive countermeasures in developing countries could focus on cultural practice and fatalistic beliefs. Countermeasures in both developed and developing countries should target male drivers.     

Root cause analysis of an old accident in an explosives production plant

Twenty-six years ago, a massive accident occurred in the Semtin explosives plant in Czechoslovakia. The results of investigations which were carried out (but kept confidential at the time) were made available after 1989, but have not been published in a summarized form to date. Reopening of the results of old investigations and application of root cause analysis deepens our understanding of accident causes and leads to the conclusion that, according to today’s standards, the analysis was not completed at the time of the accident and therefore neither some of the practical aspects of the event nor the social, professional, and political climate it should have exposed have ever been fully understood. New analysis shows that plant safety management had decayed. The results demonstrate as well how substantial a shift has occurred in the understanding of causes and in performing and organizing their analyses during the elapsed quarter-century. The new examination employs a few innovations of root cause analysis. A tight connection between the analysis and the assumptions about the structure of safety management of investigated processes will be underlined. Suitable illustration will be proposed. Detail requirements on the form and content of a root cause map will be specified. Finally it is shown that even the root cause analysis has its limitations and that it may not be sufficient to finish the investigation of causes satisfactorily. This motivates for the identification of levels of causes which underlie the root causes.     

Occupational accidents model based on risk–injury affinity groups

This article sets outs a generalized utility model for the diagnosis and prediction of accidents among the Spanish workforce. Based on observational data classified into a risk–injury contingency table (19 × 19), we have summarized the accident rate of all Spanish companies over an 11-year period (75,19,732 accidents). By using correspondence analysis a structure composed of three axes can be obtained, the combination of which identifies three separate risk and injury groups, which we use as a general Spanish pattern. The relationships of greater affinity or likelihood amongst the risks and injuries identified in the pattern facilitate decision-making at the risk-assessment stage in Spanish companies. Each risk–injury group has its own characteristics, interpretable within the phenomenological framework of the accident.The main advantage of this model is its potential application to any other country and the feasibility of contrasting results from different countries. One limiting factor, however, is that the model currently lacks a common classification frame for risks and injuries which would enhance this contrast. The aim of this model is to automatically manage work-related accidents at a national level.     

A study of pedestrian and bicyclist exposure to head injury in passenger car collisions based on accident data and simulations

The objective was to assess head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrians and bicyclists in primary impact to the passenger cars and secondary impact to the ground using real world accident data and computer reconstructions of the accidents. For this purpose, a subsample of 402 pedestrians and 940 bicyclists from the GIDAS database, Germany, was used for the statistical analysis, from which 22 pedestrian and 18 bicyclist accidents were further selected for reconstruction. PC-Crash was used to calculate impact conditions, such as vehicle impact velocity, vehicle kinematic sequence, and thrown distance. These conditions were employed to identify the initial conditions in reconstruction in MADYMO program. A comparable analysis was conducted based on the results from accident analysis and computer reconstructions for the impact configurations and the resulting injury patterns of pedestrians and bicyclists in view of head injury risks. Differences in HIC, head-relative impact velocity, linear acceleration, maximum angular velocity and acceleration, contact force, thrown distance, Wrap Around Distance (WAD), and head contact time were evaluated. Injury risk curves were generated by using a logistic regression model for vehicle impact velocity. The results indicate that bicyclists suffered less severe injuries compared with severity of pedestrian injuries. In the selected samples, the AIS 2+ and AIS 3+ head injury risks for pedestrians are 50% probability at impact speed of 38.87 km/h and 54.39 km/h respectively, while for bicyclists at 53.66 km/h and 58.89 km/h respectively. The findings of high injury risks suggested that in the area with high frequency car-pedestrian accidents, the vehicle speed limit should be 40 km/h, while in the area with high frequency car-cyclist accidents the vehicle speed limit should be 50 km/h.     

HRA in China: Model and data

Human reliability analysis (HRA) is generally viewed as quite an important part in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). In this paper, a THERP + HCR HRA model is presented to model the operators’ post-accident behavior in Chinese nuclear power plants. The paper shows how the model is structured and how to consider and acquire the corresponding data, including HCR data modification and HRA event tree data. A case study is presented to make an illustration.     

Stock market responses to chemical accidents in Japan: An event study

Despite recent major chemical process accidents in Japan, the top management teams of firms still avoid taking costly risk reduction measures because of their low perceived impact on firm performance. The disclosure of information on accident risks might motivate managers to enhance workplace safety because of the subsequent evaluation of firms by investors in stock markets. If the disclosed risk information is newly available for investors, firms with a high risk of accidents would receive a poor evaluation by stock markets and thus managers would take risk reduction measures to prevent stock prices from declining. In this study, we conduct an event study analysis to examine whether accident risk information is already reflected in stock prices, using data on the Japanese chemical industry. The results of our event study show that the estimated cumulative average abnormal returns of firms' stocks are significantly negative after severe accidents actually occurred. This finding implies that risk information is not already reflected in the stock prices of Japanese chemical firms and that the disclosure of accident risk information has the potential to motivate the top management teams of firms to reduce their firms’ accident risk.