An application of a modified theory of planned behavior model to investigate adolescents’ job safety knowledge,norms, attitude and intention to enact workplace safety and health skills

Introduction: For many reasons, including a lack of adequate safety training and education, U.S. adolescents experience a higher rate of job-related injury compared to adult workers. Widely used social-psychological theories in public health research and practice, such as the theory of planned behavior, may provide guidance for developing and evaluating school-based interventions to prepare adolescents for workplace hazards and risks. Method: Using a structural equation modeling approach, the current study explores whether a modified theory of planned behavior model provides insight on 1,748 eighth graders’ occupational safety and health (OSH) attitude, subjective norm, self-efficacy and behavioral intention, before and after receiving instruction on a free, national young worker safety and health curriculum. Reliability estimates for the measures were produced and direct and indirect associations between knowledge and other model constructs assessed. Results: Overall, the findings align with the theory of planned behavior. The structural equation model adequately fit the data; most path coefficients are statistically significant and knowledge has indirect effects on behavioral intention. Confirmatory factor analyses suggest that the knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention measures each reflect a unique dimension (reliability estimates ≥0.86), while the subjective norm measure did not perform adequately. Conclusion: The findings presented provide support for using behavioral theory (specifically a modified theory of planned behavior) to investigate adolescents’ knowledge, perceptions, and behavioral intention to engage in safe and healthful activities at work, an understanding of which may contribute to reducing the downstream burden of injury on this vulnerable population—the future workforce. Practical application: Health behavior theories, commonly used in the social and behavioral sciences, have utility and provide guidance for developing and evaluating OSH interventions, including those aimed at preventing injuries and promoting the health and safety of adolescent workers in the U.S., who are injured at higher rates than are adults.     

Perceptions of safety on a shared road: Driving,cycling, or walking near an autonomous vehicle

Introduction: While improved safety is a highly cited potential benefit of autonomous vehicles (AVs), at the same time a frequently cited concern is the new safety challenges that AVs introduce. The literature lacks a rigorous exploration of the safety perceptions of road users who will interact with AVs, including vulnerable road users. Addressing this gap is essential because the successful integration of AVs into transportation systems hinges on an understanding of how all road users will react to their presence. Methods: A stated preference survey of the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan statistical area (Phoenix MSA) was conducted in July 2018. A series of ordered probit models was estimated to analyze the survey responses and identify differences between various population groups with respect to the perceived safety of driving, cycling, and walking near AVs. Results: Greater exposure to and awareness of AVs are not uniformly associated with increases in perceived safety. Various attitudinal factors, level of AV automation, and other intrinsic and extrinsic factors are related to safety perceptions of driving, walking, and cycling near AVs. Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, income, employment, and automobile usage and ownership, have various relationships with perceived safety. Conclusions: Cycling near an AV was perceived as the least safe activity, followed by walking and then driving near an AV. Both similarities and differences were observed among the factors associated with the perceived safety of different travel alternatives. Practical Applications: Public perception will guide the development and adoption of AVs directly and indirectly. To help maintain control of public perception, transportation planners, decision makers, and other stakeholders should consider more deliberate and targeted messaging to address the concerns of different road users. In addition, more careful pilot testing and more direct attention to vulnerable road users may help avoid a backlash that could delay the rollout of this technology.     

Introducing a multi-variate classification method: Risky driving acceptance among different heterogeneous driver sub-cultures

Introduction: Heterogeneous driving populations with many different origins are likely to have various sub-cultures that comprise of drivers with shared driver characteristics, most likely with dissimilar traffic safety cultures. An innovative methodology in traffic safety research is introduced which is beneficial for large datasets with multiple variables, making it useful for the multi-variate classification of drivers, driving attitudes and/or (risky) driving behaviours. Method: With the application of multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS), this study explores traffic safety culture in the State of Qatar using a questionnaire and investigates the similarity patterns between the questionnaire items, aiming to classify attitudes towards risky driving behaviours into themes. MDS is subsequently applied to classify drivers within a heterogeneous driving sample into sub-cultures with shared driver characteristics and different risky driving attitudes. Results: Results show that acceptance of speeding is highest among the young Arabic students and acceptance of distraction and drivers’ negligence such as phone use and not wearing a seatbelt is highest among male Arab drivers. Acceptance of extreme risk-taking like intoxicated driving and red-light running is highest among South-Asian business drivers. Conclusion: It is important and practical to understand risky behavioural habits among sub-cultures and thereby focussing on groups of drivers instead of individuals, because groups are easier to approach and drivers within sub-cultures are found to influence each other. By indicating which groups of drivers are most likely to perform specific risky driving themes, it is possible to target these groups and effectively emphasise certain subsets of risky driving behaviours during training or traffic safety education. Practical Applications: This study provides guidance for the improvement of driver education and targeted traffic safety awareness campaigns, intending to make changes to attitudes and habits within specific driver sub-cultures with the aim to improve traffic safety on the longer term.     

Solvent design and inherent safety assessment of solvent alternatives for palm oil recovery

The concept of inherent safety is important in developing an inherently safer and user-friendly process. This paper discusses a new integrated approach of computer-aided product design and inherent safety assessment. Computer-aided Molecular Design (CAMD) approach was utilized in this work to identify potential alternative to n-hexane, the widely used industrial solvent in extracting residual palm oil from pressed palm fibre. The formulation of solvent mixtures was optimized to meet the targeted physical properties before being tested using the Soxhlet Extraction method. Inherent safety assessment to assess the solvent's flammability, toxicity, reactivity, and explosiveness was conducted on the new solvent mix, Mixture 1 (n-hexane + ethanol), Mixture 2 (n-hexane + acetone) and Mixture 3 (n-hexane + n-butanol). It was found that Mixture 1 and 3 are safer than n-hexane and able to extract more oil than n-hexane and Mixture 2. However, the utilization of the solvent is dependent on the end product from the residual palm oil.     

Systematic review on the implementation methodologies of inherent safety in chemical process

The accomplishments of inherent safety in the field of loss prevention thus far are impressive due to its scientific philosophy: reducing risks at source rather than adding engineered and procedural protections. Generally, the implementation of inherent safety can be done through a cohesive set of fourteen principles elucidated by Kletz and Amyotte. This work, guided by the fourteen principles, presents a systematic review on the implementation methodologies of inherent safety. Firstly, PRISMA procedure was adopted to select eligible literatures according to inclusive and exclusive criteria. After obtaining the selected literatures, the preference, level of application, and gaps in using these principles were critically analyzed. Of the fourteen principles, intensification, substitution, attenuation, simplification, limitation of effects, and avoidance of knock-on effects are preferable to implementing inherent safety in chemical process. Although the remaining principles are also potentially useful, they are not commonly used due to their costs and complexities of implementation. Overall, this work presents a complete spectrum to look across the implementation methodologies of inherent safety and concludes with some holistic and inclusive approaches as future research recommendations.     

Fun ride or risky transport: Golf cart-related injuries treated in U.S. emergency departments from 2007 through 2017

Introduction: Golf cart-related injuries constitute a substantial source of morbidity, most notably in pediatric populations. Despite the high rate of injuries, there have been no meaningful changes in golf cart design or legislation to reduce the overall burden of these injuries. This study sought to characterize the epidemiology of golf cart-related injuries treated in United States hospital emergency departments. Method: A retrospective analysis was conducted by using data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for patients of all ages who were treated in emergency departments (EDs) (2007–2017) for a golf cart-related injury. Results: From 2007 through 2017, an estimated 156,040 (95% CI = 102,402–209,679) patients were treated in U.S. EDs for golf cart-related injuries. The average rate of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in children (1.62 per 100,000 children) was more than three times that of TBIs in adults (0.52 per 100,000 adults; rate ratio = 2.38; 95% CI = 2.36–2.41) and nearly twice that of TBIs in seniors (1.11 per 100,000 seniors; rate ratio = 1.21; 95% CI = 1.19–1.22). The rate of injuries in seniors increased significantly by 67.6% from 4.81 per 100,000 seniors in 2007 to 8.06 per 100,000 seniors in 2017 (slope = 0.096; p = 0.041). Conclusions: Golf cart use remains an important source of injury for people of all ages, especially in children. As use continues to increase, it is unlikely that golf cart-related injuries will decrease without substantial changes to product design, regulation, and/or legislation. Practical Applications: Use of golf carts pose a considerable risk of injury and morbidity; safety recommendations should be followed.     

Risk assessment and risk reduction of an acrylonitrile production plant

Reducing accident occurrence in petrochemical plants is crucial, thus appropriately allocating management resources to safety investment is a vital issue for corporate management as international competition intensifies. Understanding the priority of safety investment in a rational way helps achieve this objective.In this study, we targeted an acrylonitrile plant. First, Dow Chemical's Fire and Explosion Index (F&EI) identified the reaction process as having the greatest physical risk. We evaluated the severity of accidents in the reaction process using the Process Safety Metrics advocated by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS); however, this index does not express damages a company actually experience. To solve this problem, we proposed a new metric that adds indirect cost to CCPS metrics. We adopted fault tree analysis (FTA) as a risk assessment method. In identifying top events and basic events, we attempted to improve the completeness of risk identification by considering accidents from the past, actual plant operation and equipment characteristics, natural disasters, and cyber-attacks and terrorist attacks. Consequently, we identified the top events with high priority in handling because of serious accidents as fire/explosion outside the reactor, fire/explosion inside the reactor, and reactor destruction. The new CCPS evaluation index proposed in this study found that fire and explosion outside the reactor has the highest severity. We considered the creation of the fault tree (FT) diagram of the top event, estimating the occurrence probability, and identifying the risk reduction part and capital investment aimed at risk reduction. As an economically feasible selection method for risk reduction investment, using the difference in loss amounts before and after safety investments indicated investment priority.     

Traffic climate and driver behaviors: The moderating role of driving skills in Turkey and China

Introduction: While road traffic accidents and fatalities are a worldwide problem, the rates of road traffic accidents and fatalities show differences among countries. Similarly, driver behaviors, traffic climate, and their relationships also show differences among countries. The aim of the current study is to investigate the moderating effect of driving skills on the relationship between traffic climate and driver behaviors by country. (Turkey and China). Method: There were 294 Turkish drivers and 292 Chinese drivers, and they completed the Traffic Climate Scale, the Driving Skills Inventory, and the Driver Behavior Questionnaire. The moderated moderation analyses were conducted with Hayes PROCESS tool on SPSS. Results: The results showed that safety skills moderated the relationship between internal requirements and violations both in Turkey and China. Safety skills also moderated the relationship between internal requirements and errors only in China and the relationship between functionality and violations in Turkey. Perceptual-motor skills moderated the relationships between external affective demands and errors, and also the relationship between internal requirements and positive driver behaviors in Turkey. It can be inferred that driving skills has different influences on traffic climate-driver behaviors relationship in different cultures and there might be cultural differences in the evaluation of drivers’ own driving skills. Practical Applications: Among driving skills, safety skills have a more critical role to increase road safety by decreasing number of violations. Interventions to increase safety skills of drivers might be promising for road safety.     

A risk reduction approach for academic research labs: A case study on naphthenic corrosion

Academic research and development (R&D) labs are a significant part of academic life. But there can be physical, environmental, and experiment quality risks associated to this activity. Academic labs can present specific experiments, which have associated risks for researchers. Academic labs are also characterized by a high turnover of students and many of them are not fully aware of the level of physical and environmental risks of their activity. Accidents in academic labs with injuries and loss of life are facts that have to be tackled through risk management approaches. The objective of this paper is to present an integrated management approach, tackling risk management and analysis methods. HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study) and PFMEA (Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) enabled, respectively, the analysis of safety and environmental risks. By quantifying the level of risk according to the type of experiment and the research context, it is possible to provide safety to the system. The resulting Digital Poka-Yoke – a mistake-proofing approach – has brought about the desired quality of results in experiments. The proposed approach was validated through a case study monitoring naphthenic corrosion experiments conducted by the Lab of Surface Electrochemistry and Corrosion (LSEC) at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). As a consequence, this approach is currently in use at this lab.     

Recent application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in process safety and loss prevention: A review

In recent years, significant progress has been made to ensure that process industries are among the safest workplaces in the world. However, with the increasing complexity of existing technologies and new problems brought about by emerging technologies, a strong need still exists to study the fundamentals of process safety and predict possible scenarios. This is attained by conducting the corresponding consequence modeling and risk assessments. As a result of the continuous advancement of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools and exponentially increased computation capabilities along with better understandings of the underlying physics, CFD simulations have been applied widely in the areas of process safety and loss prevention to gain new insights, improve existing models, and assess new hazardous scenarios. In this review, 126 papers from 2010 to 2020 have been included in order to systematically categorize and summarize recent applications of CFD for fires, explosions, dispersions of flammable and toxic materials from accidental releases, incident investigations and reconstructions, and other areas of process safety. The advantages of CFD modeling are discussed and the future of CFD applications in this research area is outlined.