142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Home Events & Meetings Annual Meeting Schedule & Program

Online Program

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

303956
Relationship between Safety Organizational Practices and Safety Climate in the Construction Industry (work in progress)

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Luz Stella Marin, ScD , Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA
Manuel Cifuentes, MD, ScD , School of Health and Environment - Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, Lowell, MA
Laura Punnett, ScD , Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA
Background: Safety climate (SC) has been widely examined to assess their relationship with safety outcomes.  Relatively little attention has been given to the up-stream variables that could determine safety climate.  This study explored the relationship between organizational safety practices (OSP) implemented by construction companies and perceptions of SC among construction workers.

Methods:  An 88-item assessment tool was designed to measure OSP on the construction sites.  SC was assessed using the NOSACQ-50 questionnaire.  The assessment and survey were conducted as an in-person interviewer-assisted.  The study was conducted in Colombia from October 2012 to April 2013. Multilevel mixed model analysis was conducted using OSP as the predictor variable.  Twenty four safety officers from 23 construction sites completed the assessment tool developed for the construction industry.  A total of 266 construction workers in 23 construction sites responded to the 50-item SC questionnaire. 

Results:   The unconditional Intra Class Correlation was 0.43. There was no significant association between safety practices and SC (β=.0035 p<0.225; CI -0.023, 0.009).  Controlling for age, years worked in the construction industry, years worked on the company and on the worksite, and previous work-related injuries did not change significantly the β coefficient.

Conclusion:  The variability of SC between companies is very large. OSP reported by safety officers are not significantly associated with workers’ perceptions of SC. Maybe organizational safety practice reported by safety officers is an inaccurate measure of the concept. To determine whether organization safety practice and/or SC predict safety outcomes is an important future step in this research.

Learning Areas:

Occupational health and safety

Learning Objectives:
Discuss potential determinants of workers' perceptions of safety which should be considered in strategies for injury prevention in the construction sector Identify timely and accurate safety indicators to capture and reflect daily realities of the construction work site.

Keyword(s): Occupational Health and Safety, Latinos

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I worked as a safety engineer for 10 years, focusing on designing and implementing safety and health interventions.Since 2008, I have worked as a Research Assistant for a research project aimed to develop strategies focused on the construction industry and Hispanic workers. My current doctoral research evaluates the way in which organizational practices are associated with workers’ perceptions of safety climate and how this can be used to reduce work-related injuries in the construction industry.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4392.0: Students and new researchers poster competition