Safety improvement occupational health approaches

Thanks must go to the numerous individuals within British Railways and also the Railway Inspectorate, who supported the research and gave up their time to be interviewed. Obviously this study could not have been undertaken without the co-operation of staff across British Railways, and it could not have proved such a rich source of data without the frankness and honesty with which they approached the interviews. The Directors of British Railways and the unions should also be thanked for exposing themselves to such scrutiny. I am very grateful to them and sincerely hope that this work has already helped to improve occupational health and safety on the railways and that it will contribute to future improvements in this and other industries. 

The responsibility to execute risk analyses in the woikplace and pass the results on to employees results from the Directive 89/391/EC on executing measures to improve occupational health and safety, in article II, section 6, paragraph 2,3 and article II, section 10, paragraph 1, respectively. This regulation changed prior approaches and procedures in many fields, as well as the philosophy of job protection. One of the principles of the new OHS policy is the responsibility to assess risks. 

Figure 1 illustrates a general public health approach for improving the safety and health of the workforce (HHS 1989). It begins with surveillance. We have to know what the hazards are and their safety and health consequences before we can establish priorities on where to apply our limited resources and develop intervention strategies. At the nation level, there are statistics on occupational... 

Designing for successful occupational health and safety performance requires a systematic approach. This includes understanding that the workplace is a system where changes in one element lead to influences on the other system components. It also means that efforts to make improvements must... 

An audit objectively, and in detail, evaluates an organization s occupational health and safety management system, identifying areas of strength and weakness, and supports a structured continuous improvement approach going forward. (McKinnon, 2012a, p. 89)... 

The Scope section (1.1) states that the standard defines the minimum requirements [emphasis added] for occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS). The emphasis in the advisory data is on a generic and systems approach for continual improvement in safety and health management, and the avoidance of specifications. Further, the writers of the standard recognized the uniqueness of the culture and organizational structures of individual organizations and the need for each entity to define its own specific measures of performance. ... 

The economic rationalist approach assumes that compensation pressures provide incentives for employers to improve their occupational health and safety performance and that employers respond accordingly. But this, as we have seen, is a problematic assumption. This chapter looks at how employers in fact respond to these pressures. In Chapter 4 we examine the limited reach of the compensation system and the way in which many types of employment and many health and safety risks are in principle beyond its influence. Chapter 5 looks at the broader safety pays approach and explores the argument that other economic considerations, for example productivity, can serve to focus employer attention on health and safety. 

Using as an example the facemasks (rapid palatal e qjansion [RPE]), the capture efficiency of the filter material used is rendered entirely ineffective if the mask is not properly fitted. Despite the fact that no available filter material is 100% effective and even the best filter material becomes less efficient below 50 nm, if the RPE is incorrectly fitted, the worker will continue working with a false sense of security. This is because where the RPE is used as a component in a "control banding" approach (utilizing more than one control at one time), the failure of that component will contaminate the whole banding system. Individually the failure of these control measures is of significant concern collectively they represent a failure in occupational health and safety. The improvement of any one of these measures alone will not sufficiently address the problem. 

One approach for preventing adverse health effects to workers is occupational health surveillance. According to NIOSH, occupational health surveillance involves the "tracking of occupational injuries, illnesses, hazards, and exposures." Surveillance approaches include assessments of both individual- and group/population-based activities. Data obtained from health surveillance programs are used to "guide efforts to improve worker safety and health, and to monitor trends and progress over time."... 

Because of the relevance of the problem, several attempts have been made aiming at improving Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) conditions within enterprises. In particular, several studies focused on the causes of accidents, with the purpose of removing these causes by means of different kinds of interventions. In this regard, there is scientific evidence that unsafe behaviours are a major cause of accidents (see e.g. Heinrich, 1950 and Hide et al., 2003) as a consequence, many approaches aiming at modifying human unsafe behaviours have been proposed in the scientific literature. 

This book was developed to provide safety and health professionals, students, and employers with the basic tenets for the creation of an occupational safety and health initiative for those responsible or planning to implement and manage safety and health programs for their companies or future employers. The intent of this book is to provide a management blueprint for occupational safety and health for the smallest to the largest companies who are beginning to or have seen the need to develop or improve their safety and health approach in their workplace. This would include the construction industry as well as other industrial groups. 

The basic purpose of this book is outlined in this chapter to explore the human dynamics of occupational health and safety, and to show how they can be managed to significantly improve safety performance. The principles and practical procedures you will leant are not based on common sense nor intuition, but rather on reliable scientific investigation. Many recommendations seem counter to "pop psychology" and traditional approaches to safety. So keep an open mind while you read about the psychology of safety. 

Research-to-practice (r2p) is an initiative first outlined by the US. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as an approach to conducting pragmatic, goal-oriented research (http //www.cdc.gov/niosh/r2p/). Conceptually similar to evidence-based practice (e.g., Kitson et al., 1998), and rather than research for research s sake , the r2p paradigm is directed at translating research findings into implementable actions aimed at improving health and safety. Science-driven countermeasures are an end product of an r2p effort. 

In each of the cases described below, the companies had previously used the elements of traditional safety programs. In one example of improvement, on changing in 1980 to a behavioral approach, a major U.S. drilling company reduced its Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable injury rate by 48 percent and moved from the industry average to being one of the industry s top five safety performers. This improvement was achieved through a management-driven behavioral approach even without the levels of employee involvement typical of current implementation efforts (Fig. 1.1). 

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