Correlation between safety climate and contractor safety assessment programs in construction

Flow-down of safety from general contractors to subcontractors working on commercial construction projects

Small and medium construction firms have high injury rates but lack resources to establish and maintain effective safety programs. General contractors with exemplary safety programs may serve as intermediaries to support development of smaller firm's safety programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the flow-down influence of general contractors' safety programs on the safety climate and safety behaviors among workers employed by small and medium sized subcontractors. This study collected workers' perception of safety climate and safety behaviors while working on projects with general contractors with exemplary safety programs and other general contractors. We also documented the safety program policies and practices of subcontractors, and recorded the changes in safety policies required from general contractors with exemplary programs. We examined differences in safety program changes between small and medium sized subcontractors. Results showed workers perceived general contractors with exemplary safety programs had stronger safety climates than other general contractors. Smaller subcontractors had less robust safety programs with fewer safety elements than larger subcontractors, and therefore, many of the smaller subcontractors had to adopt more safety policies and practices to work for general contractors than large subcontractors. These findings suggest that general contractors with robust safety programs can serve as intermediaries and influence the development of the safety programs of small sized firms. Future work will need to determine if smaller firms eventually adopt safety policies and practices as part of their permanent safety program.

Measuring Safety Climate in the Construction Industry: A Systematic Literature Review

Recent studies on safety in various fields use the concept of safety climate to explain the causes of safety accidents. Many studies attempt to measure the safety climates and identify the causes for accidents in the high-risk construction industry. Studies have shown that the higher the level of the safety climate, the lower the accident rate at construction sites. Methods of measuring safety climate, including the NOSACQ-50 survey, have been presented. Studies on the methodology of measuring safety climate should be continued to improve reliability and precision. Although many studies have been conducted to measure safety climate, such as questionnaires, regression analysis, and suggestions for safety climate measurement methods, there are few studies on a systematic literature review of them. This requires a systematic literature review (SLR) of the studies conducted so far. This study conducted an SLR on the definition and measurement methods of safety climate in the construction industry published since 2000, when safety climate’s impact on accidents began to be established. This review study utilized the PRISMA method, analyzed 735 studies, and selected 57 papers finally. SLR was carried out for selected research works, and the results were summarized. There are three methods to measure safety climate: literature survey, questionnaire, and data analysis. Factor analysis, development of measuring model, development of questionnaire, statistical analysis, and machine learning were investigated as their sub-methods. This study’s results can be used as fundamental sources for improving existing methods and developing new methods of measuring safety climate in the construction industry.

Perceptions of Safety Climate in Construction Projects between Workers and Managers/Supervisors in the Developing Country of Iran

What are the different perceptions on safety climate (SC) by workers and managers/supervisors engaged in the construction industry of developing countries? Reconciling these two differing views is pivotal for mitigating and avoiding both the injured and fatal accidents in the construction industry, especially in those developing countries where safety conditions are poor and unpredictable, and safety measures are inadequate in most cases. To answer this research question, the collective perceptions of 118 construction workers and 123 managers/supervisors on the SC in construction projects in Iran were gleaned and investigated. In particular, these perceptions were initially collected by two different empirical surveys validated by a sample of university professors and construction managers and then analyzed through the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and Bartlett’s test of sphericity under factor analysis, together with a one-sample t-test. Results indicated that “workers’ attitudes and perceptions”, “safety knowledge and training”, “working relationships and roles of colleagues”, and “workers’ risk perceptions” are important categories of SC factors perceived by construction workers, whereas “safety rules and management practices” is the essential category of SC factors discerned by managers/supervisors. The difference in perceptions between workers and managers/supervisors is considered to be beneficial for an overall understanding of SC in general and for developing countries in particular. Moreover, a series of effective suggestions for improving SC in the construction industry of developing countries are provided with reference to each category. The views of SC factors are reinforced as a social process combining the synergies of workers and managers/supervisors, as well as proper safety training to be pushed forward as an essential activity that should be incorporated in human resources development of construction organizations so as to improve the existing level of SC, leading to fewer accidents at the industry level.

Associations between a safety prequalification survey and worker safety experiences on commercial construction sites

BACKGROUND

While assessment of subcontractors' safety performance during project bidding processes are common in commercial construction, the validation of organizational surveys used in these processes is largely absent.

METHODS

As part of a larger research project called Assessment of Contractor Safety (ACES), we designed and tested through a cross-sectional study, a 63-item organizational survey assessing subcontractors' leading indicators of safety performance. We administered the ACES Survey to 43 subcontractors on 24 construction sites. Concurrently, we captured the safety climate of 1426 workers on these sites through worker surveys, as well as injury rates, for the duration of the project.

RESULTS

At the worksite level, higher average ACES scores were associated with higher worker safety climate scores (P < .01) and lower rates of injury involving days away (P < .001). Within subcontracting companies, no associations were observed between ACES and worker safety climate scores and injuries.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest the overall and collective importance of the construction project and its worksite in mediating worker experiences, perhaps somewhat independent of the individual subcontractor level.

The association between subcontractor safety management programs and worker perceived safety climate in commercial construction projects

PROBLEM

Safety management programs (SMPs) are designed to mitigate risk of workplace injuries and create a safe working climate. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the relationship between contractors' SMPs and workers' perceived safety climate and safety behaviors among small and medium-sized construction subcontractors.

METHODS

Subcontractor SMP scores on 18 organizational and project-level safety items were coded from subcontractors' written safety programs and interviews. Workers completed surveys to report perceptions of their contractor's safety climate and the safety behaviors of coworkers, crews, and themselves. The associations between SMP scores and safety climate and behavior scales were examined using Spearman correlation and hierarchical linear regression models (HLM).

RESULTS

Among 78 subcontractors working on large commercial construction projects, we found striking differences in SMP scores between small, medium, and large subcontractors (p < 0.001), related to a number of specific safety management practices. We observed only weak relationships between SMP scales and safety climate scores reported by 746 workers of these subcontractors (β = 0.09, p = 0.04 by HLM). We saw no differences in worker reported safety climate and safety behaviors by contractor size.

DISCUSSION

SMP only weakly predicted safety climate scales of subcontractors, yet there were large differences in the quality and content of SMPs by size of employers.

SUMMARY

Future work should determine the best way to measure safety performance of construction companies and determine the factors that can lead to improved safety performance of construction firms. Practical applications: Our simple assessment of common elements of safety management programs used document review and interviews with knowledgeable representatives. These methods identified specific safety management practices that differed between large and small employers. In order to improve construction safety, it is important to understand how best to measure safety performance in construction companies to gain knowledge for creating safer work environments.

Designing a Participatory Total Worker Health® Organizational Intervention for Commercial Construction Subcontractors to Improve Worker Safety, Health, and Well-Being: The "ARM for Subs" Trial

Background: Evidence supports organizational interventions as being effective for improving worker safety, health and well-being; however, there is a paucity of evidence-based interventions for subcontracting companies in commercial construction. Methods: A theory-driven approach supplemented by formative research through key stakeholder interviews and focus groups and an iterative vetting process with stakeholders, resulted in the development of an intervention for subcontractors in the commercial construction industry. We piloted the intervention in one subcontracting commercial construction company. We used these findings to adapt and finalize the intervention design to be tested in a future large-scale trial. Results: There were several key findings from the formative research, including challenges faced by companies and assets that should be considered in the intervention design. This resulted in a communication infrastructure company-based, continual improvement, participatory intervention design, consisting of a needs assessment and report, committee-led prioritization, action planning and implementation, and worker communication/feedback cycle. The pilot contributed to the final intervention design with modifications made with respect to timing, implementation support, capacity building, adaptability and sustainability. Conclusions: The use of a theory-driven participatory approach to developing an integrated organizational intervention for commercial construction subcontracting companies was important and necessary. It allowed us to consider the empirical evidence and relevant theories and tailor these to meet the needs of our target population. This study gives pragmatic insight into the early development of a complex intervention, with practical experience of how we adapted our intervention at each stage. This intervention will be tested in a future randomized trial.

Determinants of occupational injuries among building construction workers in Kampala City, Uganda

Background

Globally, about 1000 people die and close to 860,000 people sustain injury at work daily. Injury prevention and control require contextual evidence, although most studies in Uganda have focused on general causes. Factors associated with occupational injuries among building construction workers were assessed in this study.

Methods

A cross-sectional study among building construction workers was conducted in Kampala, Uganda. A standardized semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Three hundred nineteen (319) participants were randomly and proportionately selected from 57 construction sites. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the variables while generalized linear modeling was used to estimate the crude/adjusted prevalence ratios.

Results

The prevalence of occupational injuries was 32.4%. Most injuries, approximately 70% occurred among nightshift workers. Age of ≤24 years (APR: 2.09 CI: 1.20–3.65, P = 0.009); daily income in or above the second quartile−USD ≥3.2 (APR: 1.72, CI: 1.06–2.80, P = 0.028); job dissatisfaction (APR: 1.63, CI: 1.17–2.27, P = 0.004); job stress (APR: 1.72, CI: 1.22–2.41, P = 0.004); poor safety environment (APR: 1.51, CI: 1.10–2.05, P = 0.009); PPE provision (APR: 1.47, CI: 1.05–2.05, P = 0.02) and routine use of PPE (APR: 0.57, CI: 0.34–0.95, P = 0.03) were significantly associated with occupational injuries.

Conclusion

There was a relatively high prevalence of injuries mostly resulting from cuts and mostly suffered on night duty. Upper and lower extremities were the most hurt parts of the body during injury leading to loss of a substantial number of productive days. This could affect the health and wellbeing of construction workers. Most of the factors significantly associated with occupational injuries are modifiable thus an opportunity to address the problem. Efforts towards integrating education for behaviour change, advocacy and training workers to demand for their rights to safe and protection at work and legislation enforcement can help reduce occupational injury occurrence.

Safety climate, hearing climate and hearing protection device use among transportation road maintainers

BACKGROUND

It is important to understand workplace factors including safety climate that influence hearing protection device (HPD) use. We sought to investigate the association between HPD use, safety climate, and hearing climate, a new measure specific to hearing.

METHODS

A survey was developed and distributed among transportation "maintainers" who perform road maintenance and repair. A new hearing climate measure was designed by adapting a safety climate measure. HPD use was assessed by asking workers how often they wear HPD while in noise. The differences in safety climate and hearing climate were compared by the frequency of HPD use using analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Among 166 maintainers, 54% reported always or almost always wearing HPD while noise exposed. High-frequency HPD users reported a statistically significant higher safety climate (P = 0.004) and hearing climate (P = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS

Hearing climate predicts the frequency of HPD use and may be a useful measure when assessing and improving hearing conservation programs.

Testing the associations between leading and lagging indicators in a contractor safety pre-qualification database

BACKGROUND

Safety prequalification assessing contractors' safety management systems and safety programs lack validation in predicting construction worker injuries.

METHODS

Safety assessments of leading indicators from 2198 construction contractors, including Safety Management Systems (SMS), Safety Programs (e.g., falls, hearing protection), and Special Elements (drug testing, return to work) scales as well as the history of citations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were compared to contractors' lagging indicators of recordable injury case rates (RC) and rates of injuries involving days away, restricted, or transferred (DART).

RESULTS

Increased SMS scores were related to lower injury rates. Each one-point increase in SMS values was associated with 34% reduced odds of a recordable case rate greater than zero (Odds ratio (OR): 0.66, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): (0.57, 0.79)), and a 9% reduced recordable case rate, if one occurs (Risk Ratio (RR): 0.91, 95% CI: (0.88, 0.94)). A one-point increase in SMS was associated with 28% reduced odds of a DART (OR = 0.72, 95%CI (0.56, 0.91)), and 9% reduced DART rate, if one occurs (RR = 0.91, 95%CI (0.87, 0.95)). Safety programs did not show consistent associations with injury outcomes. Having additional Special Elements related to drug and alcohol programs was associated with lower injury rates while the Special Element related to return to work showed no consistent associations with injury. Having more OSHA Citations was associated with lower injury rates for companies with injuries.

CONCLUSIONS

These results support pre-qualification methods based on SMS and suggest the need for safety management systems in contractors.

Health and safety practitioners' health and wellbeing - The link with safety climate and job demand-control-support

BACKGROUND/AIMS

Health and Safety Practitioners (HSPs), as frontline professionals advocating for health and safety (HS) working conditions, have crucial roles for the wellbeing of employees. However, research studying HSPs psychosocial working conditions - i.e. job demands, control and support (JDCS) -, safety climate (SC) and their impact on HSPs health and wellbeing is scarce. This novel study aims to examine the link of JDCS and SC with HSPs' health, wellbeing and efficacy.

METHODS

A web-survey was completed by 879 HSPs, members of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) in Ireland and the UK. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the association between JDCS, SC and general health (GHQ12), mental wellbeing (WEMWBS) and efficacy.

RESULTS

After adjusting for age, gender and years of experience, job demands were significantly associated with HSPs health (β = 0.40; p = 0.00) and mental wellbeing (β=-0.29; p = 0.00). Positive significant independent associations were also found between job control, support, SC and HSPs health, mental-wellbeing as well as efficacy. In a final model, all psychosocial working conditions and SC were significantly associated with health and mental-wellbeing of HSPs.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that psychosocial working conditions and SC can affect HSPs health and wellbeing - associations rarely previously recorded. The link of safety climate with HSPs efficacy, with contribution of job control and support, reveals possible further impacts of SC on safety performance. The findings highlight the importance of HSPs working conditions while reflecting on the wider impact on OHS in organisations, its workforce and stakeholders.

Ethnic Disparities of Perceived Safety Climate Among Construction Workers in Georgia, 2015

BACKGROUND

Safety climate involves worker perception about the relative importance where they work and safety climate and has been shown to be a reliable predictor of safety-related outcomes.

METHODS

The primary objective of this study is to investigate ethnic differences in perceived safety climate among construction workers. Surveys (n = 179) that included a 10-item safety climate scale were administered in Athens, Georgia (GA), at local construction sites and home improvement stores during June-August, 2015.

RESULTS

The majority of respondents were carpenters or roofers (39%), followed by laborers (22%), painters and dry wall workers (14%), other skilled trades (14%), and supervisors (11%); 32% were Hispanic. Hispanic ethnicity (p < 0.0001), drinking two or more alcoholic beverages per day (p < 0.0001), working for a company that does not provide health insurance (p = 0.0022), and working for a company with fewer than ten employees (p < 0.0001) were significantly associated with lower perceived safety climate scores.

CONCLUSION

The lower perceived safety climate scores among Hispanic workers indicate that the perception of the importance of safety on the job site is lower among Hispanics construction workers than non-Hispanics construction workers.

Multilevel Safety Climate and Safety Performance in the Construction Industry: Development and Validation of a Top-Down Mechanism

The character of construction projects exposes front-line workers to dangers and accidents. Safety climate has been confirmed to be a predictor of safety performance in the construction industry. This study aims to explore the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between multilevel safety climate and safety performance. An integrated model was developed to study how particular safety climate factors of one level affect those of other levels, and then affect safety performance from the top down. A questionnaire survey was administered on six construction sites in Vietnam. A total of 1030 valid questionnaires were collected from this survey. Approximately half of the data were used to conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the remaining data were submitted to structural equation modeling (SEM). Top management commitment (TMC) and supervisors’ expectation (SE) were identified as factors to represent organizational safety climate (OSC) and supervisor safety climate (SSC), respectively, and coworkers’ caring and communication (CCC) and coworkers’ role models (CRM) were identified as factors to denote coworker safety climate (CSC). SEM results show that OSC factor is positively related to SSC factor and CSC factors significantly. SSC factor could partially mediate the relationship between OSC factor and CSC factors, as well as the relationship between OSC factor and safety performance. CSC factors partially mediate the relationship between OSC factor and safety performance, and the relationship between SSC factor and safety performance. The findings imply that a positive safety culture should be established both at the organizational level and the group level. Efforts from all top management, supervisors, and coworkers should be provided to improve safety performance in the construction industry.

Improving safety climate through a communication and recognition program for construction: a mixed methods study

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a safety communication and recognition program (B-SAFE), designed to encourage improvement of physical working conditions and hazard reduction in construction.

METHODS

A matched pair cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted on eight worksites (four received the B-SAFE intervention, four served as control sites) for approximately five months per site. Pre- and post-exposure worker surveys were collected at all sites (N=615, pre-exposure response rate of 74%, post-exposure response rate of 88%). Multi-level mixed effect regression models evaluated the effect of B-SAFE on safety climate as assessed from surveys. Focus groups (N=6-8 workers/site) were conducted following data collection. Transcripts were coded and analyzed for thematic content using Atlas.ti (version 6).

RESULTS

The mean safety climate score at intervention sites, as measured on a 0-50 point scale, increased 0.5 points (1%) between pre- and post-B-SAFE exposure, compared to control sites that decreased 0.8 points (1.6%). The intervention effect size was 1.64 (3.28%) (P-value=0.01) when adjusted for month the worker started on-site, total length of time on-site, as well as individual characteristics (trade, title, age, and race/ethnicity). At intervention sites, workers noted increased levels of safety awareness, communication, and teamwork compared to control sites.

CONCLUSIONS

B-SAFE led to many positive changes, including an improvement in safety climate, awareness, teambuilding, and communication. B-SAFE was a simple intervention that engaged workers through effective communication infrastructures and had a significant, positive effect on worksite safety.

Defining and Measuring Safety Climate: A Review of the Construction Industry Literature

Safety climate measurements can be used to proactively assess an organization's effectiveness in identifying and remediating work-related hazards, thereby reducing or preventing work-related ill health and injury. This review article focuses on construction-specific articles that developed and/or measured safety climate, assessed safety climate's relationship with other safety and health performance indicators, and/or used safety climate measures to evaluate interventions targeting one or more indicators of safety climate. Fifty-six articles met our inclusion criteria, 80% of which were published after 2008. Our findings demonstrate that researchers commonly defined safety climate as perception based, but the object of those perceptions varies widely. Within the wide range of indicators used to measure safety climate, safety policies, procedures, and practices were the most common, followed by general management commitment to safety. The most frequently used indicators should and do reflect that the prevention of work-related ill health and injury depends on both organizational and employee actions. Safety climate scores were commonly compared between groups (e.g. management and workers, different trades), and often correlated with subjective measures of safety behavior rather than measures of ill health or objective safety and health outcomes. Despite the observed limitations of current research, safety climate has been promised as a useful feature of research and practice activities to prevent work-related ill health and injury. Safety climate survey data can reveal gaps between management and employee perceptions, or between espoused and enacted policies, and trigger communication and action to narrow those gaps. The validation of safety climate with safety and health performance data offers the potential for using safety climate measures as a leading indicator of performance. We discuss these findings in relation to the related concept of safety culture and offer suggestions for future research and practice including (i) deriving a common definition of safety climate, (ii) developing and testing construction-specific indicators of safety climate, and (iii) focusing on construction-specific issues such as the transient workforce, subcontracting, work organization, and induction/acculturation processes.

Physical activity levels at work and outside of work among commercial construction workers

OBJECTIVE

Characterize the number of minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activities at work and outside of work during seven consecutive days, in a sample of 55 commercial construction workers.

METHODS

Workers wore accelerometers during work and outside-of-work hours for seven consecutive days and completed brief survey at the seventh day of data collection.

RESULTS

From the directly measured physical activity, the average number per participant of moderate minutes of occupational physical activity and physical activity outside of work obtained in short bouts were 243 minutes (65%) and 130 minutes (35%), respectively. Directly measured minutes of vigorous occupational physical activity were significant and positively correlated with self-reported fatigue.

CONCLUSIONS

Among commercial construction workers, physical activity from work contributes significantly, approximately two thirds, toward a worker's total amount of weekly minutes of moderate physical activity.

Work Safety Climate, Safety Behaviors, and Occupational Injuries of Youth Farmworkers in North Carolina

OBJECTIVES

The aims of this project were to describe the work safety climate and the association between occupational safety behaviors and injuries among hired youth farmworkers in North Carolina (n = 87).

METHODS

We conducted personal interviews among a cross-sectional sample of youth farmworkers aged 10 to 17 years.

RESULTS

The majority of youths reported that work safety practices were very important to management, yet 38% stated that supervisors were only interested in "doing the job quickly and cheaply." Few youths reported appropriate work safety behavior, and 14% experienced an injury within the past 12 months. In bivariate analysis, perceptions of work safety climate were significantly associated with pesticide exposure risk factors for rewearing wet shoes (P = .01), wet clothes (P = .01), and shorts (P = .03).

CONCLUSIONS

Youth farmworkers perceived their work safety climate as being poor. Although additional research is needed to support these findings, these results strengthen the need to increase employer awareness to improve the safety climate for protecting youth farmworkers from harmful exposures and injuries.