Behavioral safety

A common distinction is to view behavioral safety as a process rather than a program. This is not to belittle or diminish the importance of programs. Rather, a process approach provides certain desirable benefits  

It encourages everyone to recognize the daily importance of safety. 

It views safety performance as a long-term process—a process that can be continuously improved. 

McSween observes that an organization may initiate a series of programs under the umbrella of an ongoing safety process (1995, p. 34). Krause emphasizes that continuous improvement is a factor that distinguishes a genuine process from a program (1997, p. 73). Ultimately, the purpose of behavioral safety is not simply to improve individual behaviors, but to positively impact the overall safety culture and related safety systems. As these goals are accomplished, safety performance will continually improve. 

There are a number of misconceptions about behavioral safety that can impede progress. The following is a brief list of common misconceptions about behavioral safety followed by the author s comments  

---

However, we are concerned about the behavior, safety, and environmental problems of photostable synthetic pyrethroids remaining in and around houses, considering the present situation of their increased indoor use. In particular, compounds with strong insecticidal potency need long-term safety and residue studies for the health of infants and pets. 

Neurological and Physiological Effects of Carbon Disulfide Exposure Review and Evaluation,." Westinghouse Behavioral Safety Center, Interim Report, NI0SH Contract HSM-99-73-35. Columbia, MD (1973). 

Neal, A., Griffin, M. A., Hart, P. M. (2000). The impact of organizational climate on safety climate and individual behavior. Safety Science, 54(1-3), 99-109. 

According to the modem accident-causation (G. and B. et al., 2005), from the point of individual behavior-safety control, hazard is embodied unsafe act (behavior) and unsafe condition meanwhile, under certain situation, unsafe act (behavior) can transform and result in unsafe condition. The unsafe act and unsafe condition is the direct cause of accident, deeper analysis comes to the indirect (common) cause, which include three elements inadequate safety knowledge, inadequate safety awareness, and inadequate safety habit. 

It has been general agreement among researchers, and industry that individual (staff) unsafe behavior (act) is the elementary level in event (accident)-chain modeling, no matter in a simple system or in a sophisticated socio-technical system (Leveson, 2004). Thus, study on behavior safety is worthwhile. The accident-cause analysis is ranged in individual scope, i.e. not go further to organizational cause, which is addressed as the common cause of accident (see Fig. 1). 

That is issue of the effectiveness evaluation. As mentioned above, the compliance behavior (and/ or intent) is defined as the chief indicator to evaluate the effectiveness of warning sign in the article. The effectiveness is attributed to comphance behavior, because the comphance is in conformity with the idea of behavior control and behavior safety science, in which unsafe behavior contributes to almost all accident. That means, if people behave according to the correct directives and rules (warning sign), accident and loss can be prevented and reduced to a large degree. The function process of compliance is shown in Fig.3. 

Situational factors include many elements, such as familiarity and training, risk perception, rewards and punishment, cost of compliance which is regarded as a critical factor to compliance intent and behavior. Safety climate belongs to organizational element which is made up of... 

Fu Gui, Zhang Su. Discussion of the Theoretical Essence and Application Effect of Behavior Safety [J]. China Safety Science Journal, 2013, 23 (3) 1-5. 

Target of STOP is human, whereas safety check includes human, thing etc. STOP emphasizes on two ways communication. Personnel are active. Whereas in safety check personnel checked is passive. For STOP, all personnel can be observation men, whereas for safety check only specialist and managerial personnel can be observation men. STOP both affirm safe behaviors and rectify unsafe behaviors safety check only aims to thing unsafe situation and human unsafe behavior. 

STOP can get personnel to learn that back of safe or unsafe situation substantively means human behavior. Safe behavior can bring up safety situation, in the converse, unsafe behavior can bring up unsafe situation. STOP can not only observe own unsafe behaviors but also observe others unsafe behavior. Safety knowledge and experience are shared each other. After STOP applied in safety management in coal mine, unsafe behavior clearly decrease. Safety consciousness of personnel evidently enhanced. 

Yang Lei Zhang Shuang 2010. Behavior safety observation and communication applying to oil company [J], Secruity Health and Environment 10(10) 13-15. 

Behavioral safety 2-4 model is applied to the coal mine roof accident analysis drawing the following... 

FU Gui, Zhang Su, Dong Ji-ye, et al. Discussions on the theoretical understanding and effects of behavioral safety. China Safety Science Journal 2013 23(3). 

The new model of accidents introduced in part II of this book incorporates the basic systems theory idea of hierarchical levels, where constraints or lack of constraints at the higher levels control or allow lower-level behavior. Safety is treated as an emergent property at each of these levels. Safety depends on the enforcement of constraints on the behavior of the components in the system, including constraints on their potential interactions. Safety in the batch chemical reactor in the previous chapter, for example, depends on the enforcement of a constraint on the relationship between the state of the catalyst valve and the water valve. 

Accidents result from inadequate enforcement of the behavioral safety constraints on the process. 

In this conception of safety, there is no root cause. Instead, the accident cause consists of an inadequate safety control structure that under some circumstances leads to the violation of a behavioral safety constraint. Preventing future accidents requires reengineering or designing the safety control structure to be more effective. 

Unsafe behavior (hazards) at the system level can be mapped into hazardous behaviors at the component or subsystem level. Note, however, that the reverse (bottom-up) process is not possible, that is, it is not possible to identify the system-level hazards by looking only at individual component behavior. Safety is a system property, not a component property. Consider an automated door system. One... 

STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis) can be used at any stage of the system life qrcle. It has the same general goals as any hazard analysis technique accumulating information about how the behavioral safety constraints, which are derived from the system hazards, can be violated. Depending on when it is used, it provides the information and documentation necessary to ensure the safety constraints are... 

The primary responsibility of the process controller is to produce conutiands to fulfill its control responsibilities. Again, the STPA hazard analysis and safety-guided design process will produce the application-specific behavioral safety requirements and constraints on controller behavior to ensure safety. But some general guidelines are also useful. 

Software need not be treated any differently than the other parts of the system. Most safety-related software problems stem from requirements flaws. The system requirements and system hazard analysis should be used to determine the behavioral safety constraints that must be enforced on software behavior and that the software must enforce on the controlled system. Once that is accomplished, those requirements and constraints are passed to the software developers (through the black-box requirements specifications), and they use them to generate and validate their designs just as the hardware developers do. 

This book suggests a new approach to engineering for safety that changes the focus from prevent failures to enforce behavioral safety constraints, from reliability to control. The approach is constructed on an extended model of accident causation that includes more than the traditional models, adding those factors that are increasingly causing accidents today. It allows us to deal with much more complex systems. What is surprising is that the techniques and tools described in part 111 that are built on STAMP and have been applied in practice on extremely complex systems have been easier to use and much more effective than the old ones. 

Incident Reporting and Investigation Accident Prevention Signs and Tags Hand Safety Back Injury Prevention Behavioral Safety Bloodborne Pathogens Confined Space Lockout/T agout Drug and Alcohol HazCom... 

Potential incidents can be classified as either unsafe acts or unsafe conditions. The worker who holds the wrench such that it may fall has committed an unsafe act. If he fails to secure the area immediately below him with barricade tape, then an unsafe condition has been created. A lot of behavioral safety work is to do with the identification of potential incidents. 

The current status of behavioral safety is reviewed. Comments are made on the changes in approaches that have taken place how the message has changed somewhat from emphasis on worker behavior to management systems the interface of the worker with the workplace environment and performance improvement. Also, the behavioral aspect of accident causation and where behavioral safety fits in an overall, effective safety management system are put in prospective. 

Within the practice of safety, it s probable that, in time, behavioral safety will be identified as another management fad. Behavior modification and a psychological approach to safety are the vogue in some places. More on this later. 

What is behavioral safety Take care There are many consultants in the field of behavioral safety, and their premises and programs very greatly. Chapter 23 reviews the subject in depth. For the purposes of this chapter, only brief, introductory comments on behavioral safety will be made. 

Dr. Steven Simon explored the differences in the two schools of thought in a speech he gave at a behavioral safety conference held by the American Society of Safety Engineers in February 1998. Simon indicated that there are two approaches in the behavior-based safety field. One takes a macro approach—the view that operation improvement is accomplished through a culture change. The other takes a micro approach and assumes that such improvement can occur by changing the behavior of hourly workers. 

Simon expressed the view that the culture drives behavior and that a culture change is required for success in behavior-based safety. Simon s speech became a paper that was published by the American Society of Safety Engineers in the Proceedings—A Behavioral Safety Symposium, 1998. These are excerpts from Simon s paper titled The Culture Change Model of Behavioral Safety. ... 

How many companies adopted a form of behavioral safety Estimates go from 30% to 40%. How many succeeded and how many failed No one knows. Practitioners in the field continue to rave about their successes Seldom do they talk about their failures. Current views of the status of behavioral safety cover an immense spectrum From it s the best that s ever happened in the practice of safety to it never was soundly based and it s on the way out. ... 

The current emphasis on behavioral safety techniques will be discredited due to the inability to effect long-term change in behavior [p. 28]. 

Proceedings A Behavioral Safety Symposium. Des Plaines, IL American Society of Safety Engineers, 1998. 

---