SafetyInsights.org

On the back of the Safety of Work podcast around safety walkarounds – here’s a systematic review of studies that may interest you. It’s from 2014—so missing a lot of newer studies, and it’s health-care focused. But, it still evaluated 43 studies. Overall they found that safety walkarounds: However, they also identified: Finally, while many… Continue reading Systematic review of safety walkaround evidence

This paper explored the relationship between CEO leadership language and safety at BP prior to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. Their main lenses are those of ideology and metaphor (via ‘CEO-speak’). This paper is really detailed and dense, so I can’t do it justice. Key data was the then CEO Tony Hayward’s Annual General… Continue reading CEO speeches and safety culture: British Petroleum before the Deepwater Horizon disaster

Not much to add here – just an interesting paper that explored safety reporting in voluntary annual disclosures. “Of the data presented, the authors also say that “of OHS accounting appear to construct a reality in which occupational illness and injury severity are largely ignored and all non-fatal lost time injuries are equal” (p125), which… Continue reading Annual OHS corporate disclosures and ‘safewashing’ of data

“Safety is our number one priority”, so says leadership. Interestingly, this was also mentioned by the CEO at BP prior to the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo disaster. I just summarised a 2016 paper which analysed the “CEO-speak” of BP leaders prior to the disaster. Summary posted in a week or two. They found that: ·        Overall, by analysing… Continue reading CEO-speak and the Deepwater Horizon explosion

What biases are present in construction safety investigations? A new study from Thallapureddy, Sherratt, Bhandari, Hallowell & Hansen explored this question via role-play simulation interviews. They found the following to be common biases:1) Confirmation bias2) Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)3) Past experience bias4) Anchoring bias5) Hindsight bias6) Conservatism in belief revision. Post in the next week or two –… Continue reading Biases in construction safety investigations – roleplay scenario study

This study analysed 13-years of data from the Mine Safety & Health Administration’s (MSHA) database, incorporating 772 fatalities to see whether the safety triangle predicted subsequent injuries or fatalities. The categories included: Because the hours worked by a mine may influence the chance that the same mine may experience a fatality, a comparison was made… Continue reading Heinrich Revisited: a New Data-Driven Examination of the Safety Pyramid

This study explored the links between specific organisational factors of safety management systems (SMS) and specific risk variables, and their function as leading indicators. In particular, they looked at how project and site complexity, design and resourcing influences safety risks. It’s not the first study to research the links on site complexity and design etc.… Continue reading Organizational factors and specific risks on construction sites

This scoping review evaluated the evidence surrounding how psychosocial safety climate (PSC) influences health, safety and performance of workers. 93 papers were screened from an initial sample of >13k records. Providing background: Results Key findings from this literature review were: Discussing the results, it’s said that PSC, as an “upstream job resource construct”, was found… Continue reading Influence of psychosocial safety climate on occupational health and safety: a scoping review

How does organisational and project complexity and resourcing factors influence safety risks in construction?. I just summarised a paper that explored this; post in the next week or two. Unsurprisingly, they found that: ·        “Resources on site” is strongly determinant in explaining influences on risk variables because it affects all the risk variables in their model… Continue reading Construction complexity and resourcing on safety risks