Is perception of safety climate a relevant predictor for occupational accidents? Prospective cohort study among blue-collar workers

This prospective cohort study looked at whether a five-item safety climate survey administered in 2012 was predictive for accidents reported two years later in that sample of participants.

3,864 blue-collar workers were included in the survey study. Being a survey study, it also has the usual limitations, including self-recall of accidents.

Safety climate questions were the following

1. "Management ensures that everyone receives the necessary information on safety"

2. "Management encourages employees here to work in accordance with safety rules – even when the work schedule is tight"

3. "Management involves employees in decisions regarding safety"

4. "We who work here help each other to work safely"

5. "We who work here consider minor accidents as a normal part of our daily work" (Negated or reversed item)

Respondents answered on a 4-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. If responses were disagree or strongly disagree then this was interpreted as a safety climate problem. The number of problems were used in later analyses.

Results:

Of the nearly 4k participants in the study, 314 (8.1%) reported having had an accident leading to one or more days of absence within the past 12 months at the second survey period (2014).

28% of participants reported one safety climate problem, 10% two problems and 17% three or more problems. When safety climate problems were analysed as a continuous variable, a dose-response relationship was found between the number of problems disclosed in 2012 and having at least one accident in the 2014 reporting period.

Compared to participants that listed no safety climate problems in 2012, participants that reported two safety climate problems had an 84% higher risk of accident at the 2014 period and this risk was even higher for those that listed three safety climate issues at the first time point – 122% increased risk of accident over the two-year period versus people that reported no issues.

Questions 1, 2 and 3 in the above list were found to be particularly predictive of accidents two years later.

Noting the limitations, the authors argue that the five-item safety climate survey could be a quick and easy-to-use alternative to larger climate surveys if “the aim is to provide a leading indicator of whether an organization or a company are in particular risk for suffering future accidents” (p374).

It’s argued that these findings highlight that safety climate indicators have a predictive capacity in relation to accidents and based on these findings, the risk of accident follows a dose-response pattern when safety climate issues are two or more at one time point.

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Authors: Ajslev JZN, Sundstrup E, Jakobsen MD, Kines P, Dyreborg J, Andersen LL, 2018. Scand J Work Environ Health