health and safety in the workplace case study

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• 14 Jul 2022
• Research & Ideas

When the Rubber Meets the Road, Most Commuters Text and Email While Driving

Laws and grim warnings have done little to deter distracted driving. Commuters routinely use their time behind the wheel to catch up on emails, says research by Raffaella Sadun, Thomaz Teodorovicz, and colleagues. What will it take to make roads safer?

• 15 Mar 2022

This Workplace Certification Made Already Safe Companies Even Safer

New research by Michael Toffel and colleagues confirms what workplace safety advocates have long claimed: Adopting OHSAS 18001 reduces worker injuries and improves a brand's image. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 17 Aug 2021

Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense?

Driverless vehicles could improve global health as much as the introduction of penicillin. But consumers won't trust the cars until they behave more like humans, argues Julian De Freitas. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 17 Sep 2019
• Cold Call Podcast

How a New Leader Broke Through a Culture of Accuse, Blame, and Criticize

Children’s Hospital & Clinics COO Julie Morath sets out to change the culture by instituting a policy of blameless reporting, which encourages employees to report anything that goes wrong or seems substandard, without fear of reprisal. Professor Amy Edmondson discusses getting an organization into the “High Performance Zone.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 11 Jun 2019
• Working Paper Summaries

Throwing the Baby Out with the Drinking Water: Unintended Consequences of Arsenic Mitigation Efforts in Bangladesh

In this study, households that were encouraged to switch water sources to avoid arsenic exposure experienced a significant rise in infant and child mortality, likely due to diarrheal disease from exposure to unsafe alternatives. Public health interventions should carefully consider access to alternatives when engaging in mass behavior change efforts.

• 31 Jan 2019

How Wegmans Became a Leader in Improving Food Safety

Ray Goldberg discusses how the CEO of the Wegmans grocery chain faced a food safety issue and then helped the industry become more proactive. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 09 May 2018

A Simple Way for Restaurant Inspectors to Improve Food Safety

Basic tweaks to the schedules of food safety inspectors could prevent millions of foodborne illnesses, according to new behavioral science research by Maria Ibáñez and Michael Toffel. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 12 Sep 2016

What Brands Can Do to Monitor Factory Conditions of Suppliers

For better or for worse, it’s fallen to multinational corporations to police the overseas factories of suppliers in their supply chains—and perhaps make them better. Michael W. Toffel examines how. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 17 Jun 2016

Companies Need to Start Marketing Security to Customers

The recent tragedies in Orlando underscore that businesses and their customers seem increasingly vulnerable to harm, so why don't companies do and say more about security? The ugly truth is safety doesn't sell, says John Quelch. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 05 Jan 2016

The Integrity of Private Third-party Compliance Monitoring

Michael Toffel and Jodi Short examine how conflict of interest and other risks lead to inaccurate monitoring of health, labor, and environmental standards.

• 21 May 2012

OSHA Inspections: Protecting Employees or Killing Jobs?

As the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is often at the center of controversy. Associate Professor Michael W. Toffel and colleague David I. Levine report surprising findings about randomized government inspections. Key concepts include: In a natural field experiment, researchers found that companies subject to random OSHA inspections showed a 9.4 percent decrease in injury rates compared with uninspected firms. The researchers found no evidence of any cost to inspected companies complying with regulations. Rather, the decrease in injuries led to a 26 percent reduction in costs from medical expenses and lost wages—translating to an average of $350,000 per company. The findings strongly indicate that OSHA regulations actually save businesses money. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

• 24 Jan 2011

Terror at the Taj

Under terrorist attack, employees of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower bravely stayed at their posts to help guests. A look at the hotel's customer-centered culture and value system. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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Case studies.

The Center’s research identifies and explores best practices, which in turn are the foundation for policies, programs, and practices that are implemented by organizations seeking to improve worker health, safety, and well-being. Our case studies provide concise summaries of organizational change implemented using a Total Worker Health ® integrated approach, and are based on the Center’s previous and current research projects.

The Workplace Organizational Health Study The Workplace Organizational Health Study sought to improve the health, safety, and well-being of front-line food service workers by identifying working conditions that could be modified to reduce pain and injuries and improve worker well-being. This case study, developed by the Center, summarizes the implementation of the 2+2 Feedback and Coaching tool, previously used with managers and modified for use with employees. Download the case study

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center To address rising employee health care expenses, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) launched an initiative to achieve its vision of the healthiest possible workforce, the foundation of which is an organizational culture that advances employee health, safety, and well-being. This case study, developed by the Center in collaboration with HealthPartners, summarizes the DHMC successful Total Worker Health approach and the resulting beneficial outcomes. Download the case study

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Injuries and Illness

Case studies in safety: a great training tool.

Updated: Nov 6, 2011

Case studies are a great safety training tool. It’s like CSI. Employees can really get involved examining the evidence and seeing why an accident occurred.

Safety case studies are fun, challenging, interactive, and a highly effective training method.

Armed with the knowledge they gain from examining the facts of real workplace accidents, workers can learn how to avoid similar incidents and injuries.

Here’s an example of such a case from BLR’s OSHA Accident Case Studies . This case is about a confined space incident.

The Incident

Two employees arrived at concrete pit at demolition site where they’d been working to salvage the bottom part of a cardboard baler imbedded in the pit. When the employees uncovered the pit, they both felt a burning sensation in their eyes.

Employee #1 climbed down into the pit to determine what might be causing their eyes to burn. He immediately climbed back out of the pit because it was hot. He decided to put a water hose into the pit to help cool it down.

The employees climbed down into the pit with the water hose. Both employees experienced chest tightness, difficulty breathing, and burning eyes. They decided to exit the pit because of the intolerable conditions.

Employee #2 climbed out first. As Employee #1 was climbing the ladder to get out, he was overcome by the fumes and fell back into the pit. He landed on his back, unconscious.

Employee #2 climbed down into the pit in an attempt to rescue employee #1, but was unable to lift him. Employee #2 exited the pit in order to get help. Unfortunately, by the time help arrived, Employee #1 had died of asphyxiation.

The accident investigation determined that employee #1 had attempted to extinguish a small cutting torch fire the day before by covering it with sand and dirt. Apparently the fire was not extinguished and smoldered overnight, which resulted in a build up of carbon monoxide inside the pit.

Try OSHA Accident Case Studies and give a boost to your safety training program with real-life case studies of actual industrial accidents from OSHA files. We have a great one on lifting. Get the details.

Discussion Questions

Once the case has been presented, some discussion questions can help kick off the analysis of the incident. For example:

• What are the potential hazards of confined spaces?
• What was the specific hazard in this case that cause a fatality?
• Were these workers properly trained and equipped to enter a confined space?
• What type of air monitoring should be done before entering a confined space?
• Was this a permit-required confined space? If so, were the workers familiar with the safety requirements of the permit?
• Was confined space rescue equipment readily accessible?
• Training? There is no indication on the accident report that the employees were trained as authorized entrants of confined spaces. If they did receive any confined space entry training, they clearly didn’t apply what they learned. Authorized entrants are trained on the hazards of confined spaces, atmosphere testing procedures, symptoms of lack of oxygen or exposure to toxic chemicals, personal protective equipment (PPE), communication equipment, rescue retrieval equipment, etc.
• Hazard warning? These employees entered the space despite experiencing "red flags," such burning eyes and unusual heat. An important part of training for confined space workers includes learning about hazards such as the symptoms of a lack of oxygen or exposure to toxic chemicals. Workers should never enter a space, and should immediately leave a space, in which they experience signs of hazardous conditions.

Even your most skeptical workers will see what can go wrong and become safety-minded employees with OSHA Accident Case Studies . They’ll learn valuable safety training lessons from real mistakes—but in classroom training meetings instead of on your shop floor. Get more info.

• Permit-required? Most confined spaces require a permit before workers can enter the space. Permit-required confined spaces have the potential for hazards such as hazardous atmospheres, engulfment, entrapment, falls, heat, combustibility, etc. By reviewing a permit, entrants know they have obtained all the necessary equipment and the atmosphere has been monitored so they know the space is safe to enter.
• Testing? This worker died of asphyxiation, or lack of oxygen. If the atmosphere in the pit had been tested prior to entry, this accident would not have occurred. Common monitoring practices require a check of the oxygen concentration, a check for flammable gases or vapors (especially important if welding is going to be done in the space), and finally, a check for any other toxic chemicals known to potentially be in the space. Monitoring is conducted before entering the space and periodically while workers are in the space.
• Rescue procedures and equipment? The worker who collapsed back into the pit while climbing out could not be rescued because he was not wearing required rescue equipment. He should have been wearing a full-body harness attached to a retrieval line that was connected to a winch-type system that could have been used to pull the unconscious worker out of the pit. Of course, the other employee would have had to have been trained in confined space rescue procedures.

Tomorrow, we’ll introduce you to another case from OSHA Accident Case Studies, this one about a materials handling accident that resulted in a serious back injury.

More Articles on Injuries and Illness

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The true impact of workplace wellbeing: two case studies

Embedded Expertise, Published: January 29, 2020 - Updated: August 22, 2022

Mental health concerns are a leading cause of workplace absence , and as we see increasing incidents of mental health-related sick days, workplace wellbeing is paramount for both organisational and individual success.

Below I’ve written two real-life stories where bettering the wellbeing of a workplace can have dramatic effects on the individuals and business profitability itself. Hopefully this will inspire you to incorporate a wellness approach into your organisation or team, or take more notice of your own mental health.

Case study one: Michael thought he was fine

Michael* realised he was arguing a lot with his family at home and was becoming increasingly more reactive to situations that probably didn’t warrant it. He wasn’t terribly great at conducting conversations or maintaining relationships with coworkers and this spilled outside of work. Body aches and excessive headaches had also started to culminate: all obvious signs of deep stress that Michael was ignoring.

The thing is, he thought he was actually doing really well and managing his stress levels appropriately and that his behaviour and experiences were quite normal.

But in fact, he was suffering extreme levels of stress . Something he didn’t even comprehend until he connected with a workplace wellbeing expert and he had the opportunity to observe his behaviours.

After one week of dedicated and concentrated awareness on how he was reacting and experiencing situations and noticing stress levels, triggers and emotions as they arose, he started to really notice a difference.

‘After one week of dedicated and concentrated awareness… he started to really notice a difference.’

To mitigate his stress levels and improve his workplace wellbeing and relations, Michael also engaged in visualisations (similar to what athletes do ), particularly with conversations, which creates different pathways in the brain . From here he started acting differently, having better discussions and decisions and was significantly calmer everywhere throughout his life, not just in the workplace.

Case study two: bad behaviour, great worker

Company owner, Rajiv, was experiencing some staff problems that he’d tried to handle but wasn’t seeing any changes. One of his contract managers, Tom, was displaying bad behaviour whenever things would go wrong.

The thing was, it was abundantly clear that what Tom was saying and the problems that he identified were absolutely correct. And the company valued his hard work and how exceptional he was at his job, so there was no desire to terminate his contract early. Which can often be a case for difficult situations in the workplace— many people are too eager to throw the ‘baby out with the bathwater’ so to speak, rather than experiment with some alternative ways of reaching conflict resolution. Or even taking the time to discover what is really going on, stepping away from the ego and its primal behaviour of flight or fight mode.

After supportive discussions with Tom, the wellness team discovered that actually he felt isolated , alone and that he didn’t belong. And, because the mind seeks to confirm our beliefs (through confirmation bias), would create situations and replicate behaviour to further consolidate that belief. He was very caught up in his story that he was an outsider.

A sense of belonging

To further compound this position, Tom was contracted as part of a large project and he felt like he didn’t fit in with the permanent employees, who had established themselves in the internal culture.

Forbes states that, ‘Employees who do not naturally fit into established corporate norms will often times try to assimilate to those norms – or put themselves “on guard” – in order to avoid potential biases or discrimination.’ This can take considerable effort and energy, which could be better spent on a person’s core duties.

A sense of belonging in the workplace contributes greatly to retention and attraction of high-quality candidates, which leads to better productivity, outcomes, creative solutions and more profit. It can also result in 75 per cent fewer sick days and avoid millions of dollars’ worth of lost productivity.

‘A sense of belonging in the workplace contributes greatly to retention and attraction of high quality candidates…’

Fostering this sense of belonging ‘in the workplace makes employees engaged and produce work that is elevated above the ordinary…’.

Once identified, the workplace wellbeing team worked with Tom and Rajiv with proven techniques that involved awareness, cultural changes and compassion and saw rapid improvement within weeks, thanks in part to the commitment of the people involved.

The change was so significant that Rajiv was enthusiastic and hungry to find more ways in which he could change the dynamics to bring out better and better results within his company. The company also extended Tom’s contract when the opportunity became available.

Welcome contract workers too

It can be really easy to forget that contract staff are an integral part of your team, even if they are only on staff for a limited time. And it shouldn’t be a last minute or token effort.

‘… there needs to be a culture and allowance for people to connect as human beings. We shouldn’t need bonding or team leadership days to actually connect with our colleagues and make meaningful relationships ,’ says Dr Michelle Lim, a loneliness researcher and senior lecturer in clinical psychology at Swinburne University.

Incorporating contract workers as genuinely part of the team and treating them as well as you treat all employees will only promote excellent benefits for the business and wider society as a whole and help contribute to preventing distressing issues such as high suicide rates in the engineering industry.

Can you relate in full or in part to these stories? Improve your wellbeing in your workplace today. Discover more about our for our contracting professionals.

*We’ve changed these names to provide privacy and protect the identity of these people.

Nukon is joint venture between the world of optimisation and automation. our parent company, SAGE Automation, is a leader in the operations market, while NUKON has fast established an outstanding reputation in the manufacturing data, intelligence andimprovement area.

This meeting of minds means we can now bridge the gaps between the different silos within our client businesses, bringing visibility, unity and breakthrough improvements right across our clients' businesses.

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2020 Safeguard Awards finalists

WorkSafe is one of the major sponsors of the Safeguard New Zealand Health and Safety Awards. Hear from two of the finalists in our category for best initiative to address work-related health risk.

Work-related health case studies

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Evaluating Health and Safety Training: A Case Study in Chemical Workers Hazardous Waste Worker Education

Until very recently the effectiveness of training and education in controlling occupational health and safety hazards was largely a matter of faith rather than systematic evaluation (Vojtecky and Berkanovic 1984-85; Wallerstein and Weinger 1992). With the rapid expansion of intensive federally-funded training and education programmes in the past decade in the United States, this has begun to change. Educators and researchers are applying more rigorous approaches to evaluating the actual impact of worker training and education on outcome variables such as accident, illness and injury rates and on intermediate variables such as the ability of workers to identify, handle and resolve hazards in their workplaces. The programme that combines chemical emergency training as well as hazardous waste training of the International Chemical Workers Union Center for Worker Health and Safety Education provides a useful example of a well-designed programme which has incorporated effective evaluation into its mission.

The Center was established in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988 under a grant which the International Chemical Workers Union (ICWU) received from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences to provide training for hazardous waste and emergency response workers. The Center is a cooperative venture of six industrial unions, a local occupational health centre and a university environmental health department. It adopted an empowerment education approach to training and defines its mission broadly as:

… promoting worker abilities to solve problems and to develop union-based strategies for improving health and safety conditions at the worksite (McQuiston et al. 1994).

To evaluate the programme’s effectiveness in this mission the Center conducted long-term follow-up studies with the workers who went through the programme. This comprehensive evaluation went considerably beyond the typical assessment which is conducted immediately following training, and measures trainees’ short-term retention of information and satisfaction with (or reaction to) the education.

Programme and Audience

The course that was the subject of evaluation is a four or five-day chemical emergency/hazardous waste training programme. Those attending the courses are members of six industrial unions and a smaller number of management personnel from some of the plants represented by the unions. Workers who are exposed to substantial releases of hazardous substances or who work with hazardous waste less proximately are eligible to attend. Each class is limited to 24 students so as to promote discussion. The Center encourages local unions to send three or four workers from each site to the course, believing that a core group of workers is more likely than an individual to work effectively to reduce hazards when they return to the workplace.

The programme has established interrelated long-term and short-term goals:

Long-term goal : for workers to become and remain active participants in determining and improving the health and safety conditions under which they work.

Immediate educational goal : to provide students with relevant tools, problem-solving skills, and the confidence needed to use those tools (McQuiston et al. 1994).

In keeping with these goals, instead of focusing on information recall, the programme takes a “process oriented” training approach which seeks “to build self-reliance that stresses knowing when additional information is needed, where to find it, and how to interpret and use it.” (McQuiston et al. 1994.)

The curriculum includes both classroom and hands-on training. Instructional methods emphasize small group problem-solving activities with the active participation of the workers in the training. The development of the course also employed a participatory process involving rank-and-file safety and health leaders, programme staff and consultants. This group evaluated initial pilot courses and recommended revisions of the curriculum, materials and methods based on extensive discussions with trainees. This formative evaluation is an important step in the evaluation process that takes place during programme development, not at the end of the programme.

The course introduces the participants to a range of reference documents on hazardous materials. Students also develop a “risk chart” for their own facility during the course, which they use to evaluate their plant’s hazards and safety and health programmes. These charts form the basis for action plans which create a bridge between what the students learn at the course and what they decide needs to be implemented back in the workplace.

Evaluation Methodology

The Center conducts anonymous pre-training and post-training knowledge tests of participants to document increased levels of knowledge. However, to determine the long-term effectiveness of the programme the Center uses telephone follow-up interviews of students 12 months after training. One attendee from each local union is interviewed while every manager attendee is interviewed. The survey measures outcomes in five major areas:

• students’ ongoing use of resource and reference materials introduced during training
• the amount of secondary training, that is, training conducted by participants for co-workers back at the worksite following attendance at the Center course
• trainee attempts and successes in obtaining changes in worksite emergency response or hazardous waste programmes, procedures or equipment
• post-training improvements in the way spills are handled at the worksite
• students' perceptions of training programme effectiveness. 

The most recent published results of this evaluation are based on 481 union respondents, each representing a distinct worksite, and 50 management respondents. The response rates to the interviews were 91.9% for union respondents and 61.7% for management.

Results and Implications

Use of resource materials

Of the six major resource materials introduced in the course, all except the risk chart were used by at least 60% of the union and management trainees. The NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards and the Center’s training manual were the most widely used.

Training of co-workers

Almost 80% of the union trainees and 72% of management provided training to co-workers back at the worksite. The average number of co-workers taught (70) and the average length of training (9.7 hours) were substantial. Of special significance was that more than half of the union trainees taught managers at their worksites. Secondary training covered a wide range of topics, including chemical identification, selection and use of personal protective equipment, health effects, emergency response and use of reference materials.

Obtaining worksite improvements

The interviews asked a series of questions related to attempts to improve company programmes, practices and equipment in 11 different areas, including the following seven especially important ones:

• health effects training
• availability of material safety data sheets
• chemical labelling
• respirator availability, testing and training
• gloves and protective clothing
• emergency response
• decontamination procedures.

The questions determined whether respondents felt changes were needed and, if so, whether improvements had been made.

In general, union respondents felt greater need for and attempted more improvements than management, although the degree of difference varied with specific areas. Still fairly high percentages of both unions and management reported attempted improvements in most areas. Success rates over the eleven areas ranged from 44 to 90% for unionists and from 76 to 100% for managers.

Spill response

Questions concerning spills and releases were intended to ascertain whether attendance at the course had changed the way spills were handled. Workers and managers reported a total of 342 serious spills in the year following their training. Around 60% of those reporting spills indicated that the spills were handled differently because of the training. More detailed questions were subsequently added to the survey to collect additional qualitative and quantitative data. The evaluation study provides workers’ comments on specific spills and the role the training played in responding to them. Two examples are quoted below:

Following training the proper equipment was issued. Everything was done by the books. We have come a long way since we formed a team. The training was worthwhile. We don’t have to worry about the company, now we can judge for ourselves what we need.

The training helped by informing the safety committee about the chain of command. We are better prepared and coordination through all departments has improved.

Preparedness

The great majority of union and management respondents felt that they are “much better” or “somewhat better” prepared to handle hazardous chemicals and emergencies as a result of the training.

This case illustrates many of the fundamentals of training and education programme design and evaluation. The goals and objectives of the educational programme are explicitly stated. Social action objectives regarding workers’ ability to think and act for themselves and advocate for systemic changes are prominent along with the more immediate knowledge and behaviour objectives. The training methods are chosen with these objectives in mind. The evaluation methods measure the achievement of these objectives by discovering how the trainees applied the material from the course in their own work environments over the long term. They measure training impact on specific outcomes such as spill response and on intermediate variables such as the extent to which training is passed on to other workers and how course participants use resource materials.

Environmental Education and Training: The State of Hazardous Materials Worker Education in the United States

The term environmental education covers a potentially wide range of issues and activities when applied to employees, managers and workplaces. These encompass:

• education for general awareness of environmental concerns
• education and training toward modifying work practices, processes and materials to reduce the environmental impact of industrial processes on local communities
• professional education for engineers and others seeking expertise and careers in environmental fields
• education and training of workers in the growing field of environmental abatement, including hazardous waste cleanup, emergency response to spills, releases and other accidents, and asbestos and lead paint remediation.

This article focuses on the state of worker training and education in the United States in the growing environmental remediation field. It is not an exhaustive treatment of environmental education, but rather an illustration of the link between occupational safety and health and the environment and of the changing nature of work in which technical and scientific knowledge has become increasingly important in such traditional “manual” trades as construction. “Training” refers in this context to shorter-term programmes organized and taught by both academic and non-academic institutions. “Education” refers to programmes of formal study at accredited two-year and four-year institutions. Currently a clear career path does not exist for individuals with interest in this field. The development of more defined career paths is one goal of the National Environmental Education and Training Center, Inc. (NEETC) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, a wide range of education and training programmes exist at different levels, offered by a variety of academic and non-academic institutions. A survey of the institutions involved in this type of training and education formed the source material for the original report from which this article was adapted (Madelien and Paulson 1995).

Training Programmes

A 1990 study conducted by Wayne State University (Powitz et al. 1990) identified 675 separate and distinct noncredit short courses for hazardous waste worker training at colleges and universities, offering over 2,000 courses nationwide each year. However, this study did not cover some of the primary providers of training, namely community college programmes, US Occupational Safety and Health Administration training programmes and independent firms or contractors. Thus, the Wayne State number could probably be doubled or tripled to estimate the number of noncredit, noncertification course offerings available in the United States today.

The major government-funded training programme in environmental remediation is that of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). This program, established under the Superfund legislation in 1987, provides grants to non-profit organizations with access to appropriate worker populations. Recipients include labour unions; university programmes in labour education/labour studies and public health, health sciences and engineering; community colleges; and non-profit-making safety and health coalitions, known as COSH groups (Committees on Occupational Safety and Health). Many of these organizations operate in regional consortia. The target audiences include:

• construction trades workers involved in cleanup of hazardous waste sites
• emergency response personnel working for fire and emergency services agencies and industrial plants
• transportation workers involved in transporting hazardous materials
• hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility workers
• wastewater treatment workers.

The NIEHS program has resulted in extensive curriculum and materials development and innovation, which has been characterized by considerable sharing and synergy among grantees. The programme funds a national clearinghouse which maintains a library and curriculum centre and publishes a monthly newsletter.

Other government funded programmes offer short courses targeting hazardous waste industry professionals as opposed to front-line remedial workers. Many of these programmes are housed in university Educational Resource Centers funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Education Programmes

Community colleges

The broadest change on the hazardous waste education and training landscape in the past few years is the dramatic development of community college programmes and consortia to improve vocational education at the associate’s degree level. Since the 1980s, community colleges have been doing the most organized and extensive curriculum development work in secondary education.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has funded programmes nationwide to provide for a trained workforce at sites where the need has changed from nuclear technicians to hazardous waste clean-up workers. This training is taking place most rigorously at community colleges, many of which have historically provided for personnel needs at specific DOE sites. DOE-funded programmes at community colleges have also given rise to major efforts in curriculum development and consortia for sharing information. Their goals are to establish more consistent and higher standards of training and to provide mobility for the workforce, enabling an individual trained to work at a site in one part of the country to move to another site with minimal retraining requirements.

Several consortia of community colleges are advancing curricula in this area. The Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE) operates in six regions. PETE is working with the University of Northern Iowa to create a world-class network of community college environmental programmes, linked with high schools, that inform and prepare students for entry into these two-year degree programmes. The goals include the development of (1) nationally validated curriculum models, (2) comprehensive professional development programmes and (3) a national clearinghouse for environmental education.

The Hazardous Materials Training and Research Institute (HMTRI) serves the curriculum development, professional development, print and electronic communications needs of 350 colleges with two-year environmental technologies credit programmes. The Institute develops and distributes curricula and materials and implements educational programmes at its own Environmental Training Center at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, which has extensive classroom, laboratory and simulated field site facilities.

The Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) provides national leadership in the US Department of Education’s Tech Prep/Associate Degree initiative. The Tech Prep program requires coordination between secondary and post-secondary institutions to give students a solid foundation for a career pathway and the world of work. This activity has led to the development of several contextual, experiential student texts in basic science and mathematics, which are designed for students to learn new concepts in relationship to existing knowledge and experience.

CORD has also played a significant role in the Clinton administration’s national educational initiative, “Goals 2000: Educate America”. In recognition of the need for qualified entry-level personnel, the initiative provides for the development of occupational skills standards. (“Skills standards” define the knowledge, skills, attitudes and level of ability necessary to successfully function in specific occupations.) Among the 22 skills standards development projects funded under the programme is one for hazardous materials management technology technicians.

Articulation between vocational and baccalaureate programmes

A continuing problem has been the poor linkage between two-year and four-year institutions, which hampers students who wish to enter engineering programmes after completing associate’s (two-year) degrees in hazardous/radioactive waste management. However, a number of community college consortia have begun to address this problem.

The Environmental Technology (ET) consortium is a California community college network that has completed articulation agreements with four four-year colleges. The establishment of a new job classification, “environmental technician”, by the California Environmental Protection Agency provides added incentive for graduates of the ET program to continue their education. An ET certificate represents the entry level requirement for the environmental technician position. Completion of an associate’s degree makes the employee eligible for promotion to the next job level. Further education and work experience allows the worker to progress up the career ladder.

The Waste-management Education and Research Consortium (WERC), a consortium of New Mexico schools, is perhaps the most advanced model which attempts to bridge gaps between vocational and traditional four-year education. Consortium members are the University of New Mexico, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico State University, Navajo Community College, Sandia Laboratory and Los Alamos Laboratories. The approach to curriculum transfer has been an interactive television (ITV) program in distance learning, which takes advantage of the varied strengths of the institutions.

Students enrolled in the environmental programme are required to take 6 hours of courses from the other institutions through distance learning or an offsite semester of coursework. The programme is decidedly inter-disciplinary, combining a minor in hazardous materials/waste management with a major from another department (political science, economics, pre-law, engineering or any of the sciences). The programme is “both broad and narrow” in focus, in that it recognizes a need to develop students with both a broad knowledge base in their field and some specific training in hazardous materials and hazardous waste management. This unique programme couples student participation in realistic applied research and industry-led curriculum development. The courses for the minor are very specific and take advantage of the particularized specialties at each school, but each program, including the associate degree, has a large core requirement in humanities and social sciences.

Another unique feature is the fact that the four-year schools offer two-year associate’s degrees in radioactive and hazardous materials technology. The two-year associate’s degree in environmental science offered at the Navajo Community College includes courses in Navajo history and substantial courses in communications and business, as well as technical courses. A hands-on laboratory has also been developed on the Navajo Community College campus, an unusual feature for a community college and part of the consortium’s commitment to hands-on laboratory learning and technology development/applied research. The WERC member institutions also offer a “non-degree” certificate programme in waste management studies, which seems to be above and beyond the 24-hour and 40-hour courses offered at other colleges. It is for individuals who already have a bachelor’s or graduate degree and who further wish to take advantage of seminars and specialty courses at the universities.

Conclusions

Several significant changes have taken place in the focus of education and training related to the hazardous waste industry in the past few years, in addition to the proliferation of short-course training programmes and traditional engineering programmes. Overall, the Department of Energy seems to have focused education at the community college level on workforce retraining, primarily through the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE), the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium (WERC) and other consortia like them.

There is a major gap between vocational training and traditional education in the environmental field. Because of this gap, there is not a clear, routine career path for hazardous waste workers, and it is difficult for these workers to advance in industry or government without classic technical degrees. Although inter-departmental options for education at a management level are being established within economics, law and medicine departments which recognize the breadth of the environmental industry, these are still academic-based professional degrees which miss a large part of the available and experienced workforce.

As the environmental clean-up industry matures, the long-term needs of the workforce for more balanced training and education and a well-developed career path become more clear. The large numbers of displaced workers from closed military sites means more people are entering the environmental workforce from other fields, making the demand on union training and placement of displaced workers (both discharged military personnel and displaced civilian personnel) even greater than before. Educational programmes are needed which meet both the needs of personnel entering the industry and of industry itself for a more balanced and better-educated workforce.

Since labour union members are one of the main groups poised to enter the hazardous waste clean-up and environmental remediation field, it would seem that labour studies and industrial relations departments might be logical entities to develop degree programmes that incorporate a hazardous waste/environmental curriculum with development of labour/management skills.

Worker Education and Environmental Improvement

The articles in this chapter have thus far concentrated on training and education regarding workplace hazards. Environmental education serves multiple purposes and is a useful complement to occupational safety and health training. Worker education is a critical and often overlooked aspect of a broad and effective environmental protection strategy. Environmental issues are frequently viewed as purely technological or scientific matters that stand outside the purview of workers. Yet worker knowledge is critical to any effective environmental solutions. Workers are concerned as citizens and as employees about environmental matters because the environment shapes their lives and affects their communities and families. Even when technological solutions are required that use new hardware, software or process approaches, worker commitment and competence are necessary for their effective implementation. This is true for workers whether involved directly in environmental industries and occupations or in other kinds of jobs and industrial sectors.

Worker education can also provide a conceptual foundation to enhance workers’ participation in environmental improvement, health and safety protection, and organizational improvement. The UNEP Industry and Environment Programme notes that “many companies have found that worker involvement in environmental improvement can yield important benefits” (UNEP 1993). The Cornell Work and Environment Initiative (WEI) in a study of US enterprises found that intense worker participation yielded triple the source reduction of technical or external solutions alone and boosted yields of some technological approaches even higher (Bunge et al. 1995).

Worker environmental education comes in a variety of forms. These include trade union awareness and education, occupational training and orientation, connecting environment to workplace health and safety concerns and broad awareness as citizens. Such education occurs in a range of venues including worksites, trade union halls, classrooms and study circles, using both traditional and newer computer-based delivery systems. It is fair to say that workers’ environmental education is an underdeveloped field, especially in comparison with managerial and technical training and school-based environmental education. At the international level, education of front-line workers is often mentioned in passing and is overlooked when it comes to implementation. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has commissioned a series of studies on the educational dimension of environmental protection, and in its next programme of work will directly look at the shop-floor workers and their environmental educational needs.

What follows are several examples gathered through the WEI at Cornell University that illustrate both practice and possibility in worker environmental education.The WEI is a network of managers, trade unionists, environmentalists and government policy officials from 48 countries in all parts of the world, committed to finding ways that workers and the workplace can contribute to environmental solutions. It addresses a wide range of industries from primary extraction to production, service and public-sector enterprises. It provides a means for education and action on environmental matters that seeks to build knowledge at the workplace and in academic institutions that can lead to cleaner and more productive workplaces and better connection between internal and external environments.

Australia: Eco-Skills Modules

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has developed new approaches to workers’ education for the environment that provides both broad social awareness and specific competencies for employment, especially among young workers.

The ACTU has organized an Environment Training Company with a broad mandate to address a variety of sectors but with an initial focus on land management issues. This focus includes teaching ways to handle reclamation work safely and effectively but also ways to assure compatibility with indigenous peoples and natural environments. With input from trade unionists, environmentalists and employers, the training company developed a set of “Eco-Skills” modules to establish basic environmental literacy among workers from an array of industries. These are integrated with a set of skill competencies that are technical, social and safety oriented.

Eco-Skills modules 1 and 2 contain a broad base of environmental information. They are taught alongside other entry-level training programmes. Levels 3 and higher are taught to people who specialize in work focused on reduction of environmental impacts. The first two Eco-Skills modules are composed of two forty-hour sessions. Trainees attain skills through lectures, group problem-solving sessions and practical hands-on techniques. Workers are assessed through written and oral presentations, group work and role plays.

Concepts covered in the sessions include an introduction to the principles of ecologically sustainable development, efficient resource use and cleaner production and environmental management systems. Once Module 1 is completed workers should be able to:

• identify the implications of a given lifestyle for long-term sustainability with specific emphasis placed on the learner’s present and future lifestyle
• identify ways to reduce the environmental impact of human activities
• describe strategies to reduce environmental impacts in a given industry (agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, tourism, leisure, mining)
• describe the main features of an Environmental Management System
• identify the role of stakeholders in reducing environmental pollution and resource depletion.

Module 2 expands upon these initial objectives and prepares workers to begin applying pollution prevention and resource conservation methods.

Some industries are interested in connecting environmental impact skills and knowledge to their industry standards at every level. Awareness of environmental issues would be reflected in the day-to-day work of all industry workers at all skill levels. An incentive for workers lies in the fact that pay rates are linked to industry standards. The Australian experiment is in its infancy, but it is a clear attempt to work with all parties to develop competency-based activities that lead to increased and safer employment while enhancing environmental performance and awareness.

Linking Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Training

One of the most active unions in the United States in environmental training is the Laborers International Union of North American (LIUNA). US government regulations require that hazardous-waste abatement workers receive 40 hours of training. The union along with participating contractors have developed an intensive 80-hour course designed to provide potential hazardous-waste workers with greater awareness of safety and the industry. In 1995, over 15,000 workers were trained in lead, asbestos and other hazardous-waste abatement and other environmental remediation work. The Laborers–Associated General Contractors programme has developed 14 environmental remediation courses and associated train-the-trainer programmes to assist nationwide efforts at safe and quality remediation. These are conducted at 32 training sites and four mobile units.

In addition to providing safety and technical training, the programme encourages participants to think about larger environmental issues. As part of their classwork, trainees gather materials from local papers on environmental issues and use this local connection as an opening to discuss broader environmental challenges. This joint environmental training fund employs a full-time equivalent staff of 19 at its central office and spends over US$10 million. The materials and training methods meet high quality standards with extensive use of audio-visual and other training aids, specific competency focus, and quality commitment and assessment built in throughout the curricula. A “learn-at-home” video is used to help meet literacy concerns and environmental and basic literacy training are connected. For those who desire it, six of the courses are transferable into college credit. The programme is active in serving minority communities, and over half of the participants come from minority population groups. Additional programmes are developed in partnership with minority consortiums, public housing projects and other training providers.

The union understands that a great deal of its future membership will come in environmentally related businesses and sees the development of worker education programmes as building the foundation for that growth. While both safety and productivity are better on jobs using trained workers, the union also sees the broader impact:

The most interesting impact environmental training has had on members is their increased respect for chemicals and harmful substances in the workplace and at home. … Awareness is also increasing with respect to the consequences of continued pollution and the cost involved with cleaning up the environment. … The true impact is much greater than just preparing people for work (LIUNA 1995).

In the United States, such hazardous-materials training is also conducted by the Operating Engineers; Painters; Carpenters; Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers; Chemical Workers Union; Machinists; Teamsters; Ironworkers and Steelworkers.

LIUNA is also working internationally with the Mexican Confederation of Workers (CTM), federal and private training groups and employers to develop training methodologies. The focus is on training Mexican workers in environmental remediation work and construction skills. The Inter-American Partnership for Environmental Education and Training (IPEET) held its first training course for Mexican workers during the summer of 1994 in Mexico City. A number of labour leaders and workers from local industries, including paint manufacturing and metal plating, attended the one-week course on environmental safety and health. Other LIUNA partnerships are being developed in Canada with French editions of the materials and “Canadianization” of the content. The European Institute for Environmental Education and Training is also a partner for similar training in Eastern European and CIS countries.

Zambia: Educational Manual on Occupational Health and Safety

In Zambia, too often occupational health and safety is taken seriously only when there is an incident involving injury or damage to company property. Environmental issues are also ignored by industry. The Manual on Occupational Health and Safety was written in an effort to educate employees and employers on the importance of occupational health and safety issues.

The first chapter of this manual outlines the importance of education at all levels in a company. Supervisors are expected to understand their role in creating safe, healthy working conditions. Workers are taught how maintaining a positive, cooperative attitude relates to their own safety and work environment.

The manual specifically addresses environmental issues, noting that all major towns in Zambia face

threats of increasing environmental damage. In specific, the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) identified environmental hazards in the mining industry through strip mining and air and water pollution that results from poor practices. Many factories are responsible for air and water pollution because they discharge their waste directly into nearby streams and rivers and allow smoke and fumes to escape unchecked into the atmosphere (ZCTU 1994).

Though many African trade unions are interested in further education on the environment, lack of adequate funding for worker education and the need for materials that link environmental, community and workplace hazards are major barriers.

Employer-Based Worker Environmental Education and Training

Employers, especially larger ones, have extensive environmental education activities. In many cases, these are mandated training linked to occupational or environmental safety requirements. However, an increasing number of companies recognize the power of broad worker education that goes well beyond compliance training. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of companies have made health, safety and environment (HSE) part of their overall approach to training, and environment is an integral part of all management decisions (Bright and van Lamsweerde 1995). This is a global practice and mandate. One of the company’s goals is to define HSE competencies for appropriate jobs. Worker competence is developed through improved awareness, knowledge and skill. Appropriate training will increase worker awareness and knowledge, and skills will develop as new knowledge is applied. A wide range of delivery techniques helps share and reinforce the environmental message and learning.

At Duquesne Light in the United States, all 3,900 employees were successfully trained “on how the company and its employees actually affect the environment.” William DeLeo, Vice-President of Environmental Affairs said:

To develop a training programme that enabled us to meet out strategic objectives we determined that our employees needed a general awareness of the importance of environmental protection as well as specific technical training relative to their job responsibilities. These two points became the guiding strategy for our environmental education program (Cavanaugh 1994).

Worker and Union-Based Environmental Education Programmes

The Workers’ Education Branch of the ILO has developed a six-booklet set of background materials to spark discussion among trade unionists and others. The booklets address workers and the environment, the workplace and the environment, the community and the environment, world environmental issues, the new bargaining agenda, and provide a guide to resources and a glossary of terms. They provide a broad, insightful and easy-to-read approach that can be used in both developing and industrial countries to discuss topics relevant to workers. The materials are based on specific projects in Asia, the Caribbean and Southern Africa, and can be used as a whole text or can be separated in a study circle format to promote general dialogue.

The ILO in a review of training needs pointed out:

Trade unionists must increase their awareness about environmental concerns in general and the impact their employing firms are having on the environment, including the safety and health of their workers, in particular. Trade unions and their members need to understand environmental issues, the consequences that environmental hazards have on their members and the community at large, and be able to develop sustainable solutions in their negotiations with company management and employers’ organizations. (ILO 1991.)

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has observed:

Local trade unions and other employee representatives are in a particularly difficult situation. They will have the relevant knowledge of the local situation and the workplace but will, in most cases, not be sufficiently specialised in complex environmental and strategic issues.

They will, therefore, be unable to exercise their functions unless they received additional and specialised training. (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 1993.)

A number of national unions have urged increased workers’ education on the environment. Included among them is the LO in Sweden, whose 1991 Environmental Programme called both for more education and action at the workplace and for additional study circle material on the environment to promote awareness and learning. The Manufacturing Workers Union in Australia has developed a training course and set of materials to assist the union in providing environmental leadership, including how to address environmental issues through collective bargaining.

Good worker-based environmental education provides both conceptual and technical information to workers that assists them in increasing environmental awareness and in learning concrete ways to change work practices that are damaging to the environment. These programmes also learn from workers at the same time to build on their awareness, reflection and insight about workplace environmental practice.

Workplace environmental education is best done when it is connected to community and global environmental challenges so that workers have a clear idea of how the ways they work are connected to the overall environment and how they can contribute to a cleaner workplace and global ecosystem.

Safety and Health Training of Managers

Following a brief review of the development of educational contributions to worker health and safety and of the first attempts to establish the foundations of management education, this article will address curriculum development. The two career paths along which future senior managers develop will be considered as an issue relevant to the educational needs of managers. The curriculum content for managerial issues will be set forth first, to be followed by that pertinent to an understanding of injury causation.

Education for occupational safety and health has been directed, in the main, to people such as safety managers and occupational physicians, and more recently, to occupational health nurses, ergonomists and hygienists—people who have been appointed to specialist staff positions in organizations.

The advisory roles of these specialists have incorporated tasks such as the administration of pre-employment medical examinations, health surveillance, monitoring employee exposures to a range of hazards and environmental examination. Their activities moreover include contributing to job and task design in order to adjust engineering or administrative controls by way of minimizing if not eliminating (for example) the harmful effects of postural demands or of exposure to toxic hazards.

This specialist-oriented educational approach has tended to ignore the central fact that the provision of safe and healthy workplaces requires an extraordinarily broad scope of operational knowledge necessary to make them a reality. It must be borne in mind that managers carry the responsibility for planning, organizing and controlling work activities in public and private enterprises across all industry sectors.

During the decade of the 1970s many initiatives were taken to offer study programmes at the tertiary level to provide a professional education with practical training for the range of specialist engineers, scientists and health care workers entering the field of occupational safety and health.

In the 1980s it was recognized that the people most directly concerned with occupational safety and health, the managers, the workers themselves and their associations, were the most significant entities in the move to reduce workplace injury and ill health. Legislation in many jurisdictions was introduced to provide education for workers serving on safety committees or as elected safety and health representatives. These changes highlighted for the first time the very limited education and training facilities then available to managers.

An early initiative to address management education

Several steps were taken to overcome this problem. The most widely known is Project Minerva, an initiative of the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which represented an early effort to inculcate that body of specific managerial skills which is necessary to ensure workplace safety and which “generally exceeds that which is offered through courses in the traditional business curriculum” (NIOSH 1985). Teaching materials intended to address the more urgent safety and health concerns were provided for business schools. The resource guide comprised instructional modules, case studies and a book of readings. Module topics are listed in figure 1.

Figure 1. Modular curriculum content, Project Minerva resource guide.

The Canadian Society of Safety Engineers has recommended this structure to business schools seeking to incorporate occupational safety and health materials into their curricula.

Fundamentals of Managing: General Rather Than Specific Needs

Any job responsibility entails the acquisition of relevant knowledge and appropriate skills in order to discharge it. Responsibility for managing occupational safety and health within any organization will be placed increasingly upon line managers at each level in the job hierarchy. Associated with that responsibility ought to be commensurate accountability and the authority to command the necessary resources. The knowledge and skills needed to discharge this responsibility form the curriculum for occupational safety and health management education.

At first sight, it would seem necessary that a curriculum of this sort be developed with the aim of meeting all the special demands of the whole range of management functions as they relate to such a diversity of positions as office administrator, nurse manager, operations director, supplies and purchasing superintendent, fleet coordinator and even ship’s captain. The curricula need also, perhaps, address the whole range of industries and the occupations found within them. However, experience strongly suggests that this is not so. The necessary skills and knowledge are, in fact, common to all management functions and are more fundamental than those of the specialists. They are operative at the level of basic management expertise. However, not all managers arrive at their position of responsibility by taking similar paths.

Managerial Career Paths

The usual path to a managerial career is through either supervisory or specialist functions. In the former case, career development is dependent on work experience and job knowledge and in the latter it ordinarily presupposes off-the-job college education and postgraduate study, for example as an engineer or nurse manager. Both streams need to develop occupational safety and health (OSH) skills. For the latter this may be done in graduate school.

It is usual today for successful managers to acquire the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA). For this reason the Minerva Project directed its attention to the 600 or more graduate management schools in the United States. By incorporating into MBA curricula such aspects of occupational safety and health as were determined to be critical for successful management of the field, it was believed that this material would be integrated into the formal studies of middle management.

Given the extremely high rate of technological invention and scientific discovery, undergraduate courses, particularly in engineering and scientific disciplines, have only limited opportunities to integrate broadly-based safety theory and practice into design, process and operation studies.

Since managerial roles begin fairly soon after graduation for those with specialist education, there is a need to provide the knowledge and skills that will support the safety and health responsibility of both specialist and generalist managers.

It is important that an awareness of the content of any curriculum devoted to occupational safety and health objectives among management be promoted among other personnel having related responsibilities. Thus, the training of such key employees as safety and health representatives should be designed to keep them current with such curricular developments.

Curriculum for Managing Occupational Safety and Health

There are two broad classes of knowledge into which the discipline of occupational safety and health falls. One is that relating to the functions and principles of management and the other deals with the nature and proactive control of hazards. The model of curriculum development set forth below will follow this division. Both the supervisory path to management and the specialist path will require their own particular coverage of each of these classes.

The question of what level of complexity and technological detail needs to be provided to students may be determined by the purpose of the course, its length and the intention of the providers regarding subsequent education and skills development. These issues will be addressed in a later section.

Specifically, curricula should address machinery and plant safety, noise, radiation, dust, toxic materials, fire, emergency procedures, medical and first aid arrangements, workplace and employee monitoring, ergonomics, environmental hygiene, workplace design and maintenance and, most importantly, the development of standard operating procedures and training. This last is an essential component of managerial understanding. Not only must tasks and processes be the subject of operator training but the requirement for continuous improvement of people and processes makes training and retraining the most critical step in improving the quality of both. Adult learning theory and practice needs to be applied in the development of the curricular materials that guide this continuing training process.

The functions and principles of management

The fundamental purposes of management embrace the planning, organizing and control of workplace activities. They also embrace the incorporation of practices which maximize opportunities for workforce participation in goal setting, team operation and quality improvement. Furthermore, successful management requires the integration of occupational safety and health into all the organization’s activities.

It is rare for undergraduate programmes, outside those of colleges of business, to cover any of this knowledge. However, it is a most essential component for the specialist practitioners to have incorporated into their undergraduate study.

Organizational framework

The mission statement, strategic plan and structure set up to guide and facilitate the attainment of the organization’s objectives must be understood by the managers to be the basis for their individual activities. Each division of the organization whether it is a hospital, trucking business or coal mine, will in turn have its own goals and structure. Each will reflect the need to achieve organizational goals, and, taken together, will drive the organization towards them.

Policies and procedures

The primary embodiment of an organization’s goals are comprised by policy documents, the guides for individual employees on specific topics. (In some jurisdictions, the publication of an organization’s overall policy is required by law.) These documents ought to include reference to the range of occupational safety and health programmes designed with regard to the activities and processes which occupy the working time of employees. A sample of some general policy statements might include documents on emergency evacuation, fire fighting, purchasing procedures, injury reporting and accident and incident investigation. On the other hand, specific hazards will require their own process-specific policy materials concerning, for example, hazardous substances management, ergonomic interventions or entry into confined spaces.

After establishing policy, an activity preferably carried out with worker representative participation and union involvement, detailed procedures would then be put in place to give effect to them. Again, participative practices will contribute to the wholehearted acceptance of them by the workforce as a valuable contribution to their safety and health.

A safety and health management system is schematically illustrated in figure 2.

Figure 2. A health and safety management system.

Organizational structures defining key roles

The next stage in the management process is to define an organizational structure which characterizes the roles of key people—for example, the chief executive—and professional advisors such as safety advisors, occupational hygienists, the occupational health nurse, the physician and the ergonomist. In order to facilitate their roles, the relationships of these people and elected safety and health representatives (required in some jurisdictions) and worker members of safety committees to the organizational structure need to be explicit.

The planning and organizing functions of management will integrate structures, policies and procedures into the operational activities of the enterprise.

Control activities—establishing processes and goals, determining standards of acceptable achievement and measuring performance against those standards—are the operational steps which bring to realization the intentions of the strategic plan. They also need to be established through co-determination. The tools for control are workplace audits, which may be continuous, frequent, random or formal.

An understanding of these activities is an important component of a management education syllabus, and skills should be developed in carrying them out. Such skills are as essential to the success of an integrated safety and health plan as they are to the discharge of any other management function, whether purchasing or fleet operation.

Organizational development and curriculum

Since the introduction of new organizational structures, new equipment and new materials is occurring at a rapid pace, special attention must be given to the processes of change. The employees who will be affected by these changes can have a deciding influence on their effectiveness and on the efficiency of the work group. An understanding of the psychosocial factors influencing the activities of the organization must be acquired and skills must be developed in using this knowledge to reach organizational objectives. Of particular importance is the delegation of the authority and the accountability of the manager to work groups formed into autonomous or semi-autonomous work teams. The management education curriculum must place at the disposal of its students the tools necessary to carry out their obligation to ensure not only process improvement and quality but the development of the multiple skills and quality awareness of personnel with which the issue of safety is so closely involved.

There are two further components of the management curriculum requiring examination. One of these is the activity of incident investigation and the other, on which the whole of this activity rests, is an understanding of the accident phenomenon.

The accident phenomenon

The work of Derek Viner (1991) in clearly expounding the significance of energy sources as the potential hazards in all workplaces has defined half of the accident equation. In conjunction with Viner’s work, the contribution of Dr. Eric Wigglesworth (1972) in identifying human error, the crucial element in managing workplace safety activities, completes its definition. An emphasis on the process of each damaging occurrence has been shown by Benner (1985) when considering accident investigation methods to be the most productive approach to managing worker safety and health.

Wigglesworth’s visualization of the sequence of events which results in injury, damage and loss appears in figure 3. It highlights the role of nonculpable human error, as well as the essential element of loss of energy containment and the potential for the injury outcome where this occurs.

Figure 3. The error/injury process.

The implications of the model for management become clear when planning for work processes takes account of the behavioural inputs which affect those processes. This is so in particular when the role of design is given its rightful place as the initiating mechanism for both equipment and process development. When planning takes account both of the design of plant and equipment and of the human factors influencing work activity, coordination and control mechanisms can then be implemented to assure containment of the identified hazards.

A model may be used to illustrate the significance of the interaction between the worker, the equipment, tools and machines employed to further the task objectives and the environment within which the activity takes place. The model highlights the need to address factors within all three elements which may contribute to damaging events. Within the workstation environment, which encompasses the thermal, aural and lighting components, among others, the worker interacts with the tools and equipment necessary to get the work done (see figure 4).

Figure 4. Representation of workstation elements relevant to injury causation and control.

Accident investigation and analysis

Accident investigation serves a number of important functions. First, it can be a proactive process, being used in situations where an incident occurs which results in no damage or injury but where there is a potential for harm. Studying the sequence of events can uncover features of the work process which could lead to more serious consequences. Second, one may gain an understanding of the process by which the events unfolded and thus can identify the absence of, or weakness in, process or task design, training, supervision or controls over energy sources. Third, many jurisdictions legally require investigations of certain types of incidents, for example, scaffolding and trench collapses, electrocutions and failures of hoisting equipment. The work of Benner (1985) illustrates well the importance of having a clear understanding of the accident phenomenon and an effective protocol for investigating injury and damage events.

The nature and control of hazards

All injury results from some form of energy exchange. The uncontrolled release of physical, chemical, biological, thermal, or other forms of energy is a source of potential harm to a variety of workers. Containment by suitable engineering and administrative mechanisms is one essential aspect of suitable control. Identifying and evaluating these energy sources is a prerequisite for control.

A management education curriculum would thus contain topics covering a range of activities which includes establishing objectives, planning the work, developing policy and procedures, undertaking organizational change and installing controls over work processes (and specifically the energy sources utilized in carrying out that work), all aimed at injury prevention. While curricula designed for the technical areas of operations need address only fundamental principles, organizations that make use of very hazardous materials or processes must have in their employ a senior member of management with sufficient training in the specific modes of handling, storage and transport of such technology to ensure the safety and health of workers and members of the community.

Larger enterprises and small business

Managers who work in larger organizations employing, say, a hundred or more people usually have one or only a few functional responsibilities and report to a senior manager or a board of directors. They have occupational safety and health responsibility for their own subordinates and act within established policy guidelines. Their educational needs may be addressed by the formal programmes offered in business schools at the undergraduate or graduate level.

On the other hand, the sole managers or partners in small enterprises are less likely to have had graduate education, and, if they have, it is more likely to be of a technological than managerial sort, and it is more difficult to address their needs for the management of occupational health and safety.

Small business needs

Providing training programmes for these managers, who often work very long hours, has represented a difficulty of long standing. Although a number of large legislative jurisdictions have produced guidance booklets setting out minimum performance stands, the more promising approaches are being made available through industry associations, such as the Ontario Industrial Accident Prevention Associations funded by levies placed by the Workers’ Compensation Board upon all businesses in the given industrial sector.

Syllabus Content

A body of knowledge and skills which addresses the needs of managers at the first-line supervisory level, middle management and senior executives is outlined in figure 5 by topic. Individual short-form syllabuses follow in figure 6. These have been collated from the syllabuses of a number of university graduate study programmes.

Figure 5. Syllabus for an OSH study programme.

Figure 6. Short form syllabuses for an OSH study programme.

The needs of first-line supervisors will be met through the acquisition of knowledge and skills covered by those topics that relate to operational demands. The training of senior executives will concentrate on such topics as strategic planning, risk management and compliance matters as well as initiating policy proposals. The allocation of hours for each course of study should reflect student needs.

Management education for occupational safety and health demands an eclectic approach to the broadest range of issues. It shares with quality the imperative of being integrated into every management and worker activity, into every employee’s job description and should be a part of the performance appraisal of all.

Training of Health and Safety Professionals

Categories of Occupational Safety and Health Professionals Requiring Training and Education

The delivery of occupational safety and health services requires a highly-trained and multidisciplinary team. In a few less-developed countries, such a team may not exist, but in the vast majority of countries in the world, experts in different aspects of OSH are usually at least available though not necessarily in sufficient numbers.

The question of who belong to the categories of OSH professionals is fraught with controversy. Usually there is no dispute that occupational physicians, occupational nurses, occupational hygienists and safety professionals (sometimes referred to as safety practitioners) are OSH professionals. However, there are also members of many other disciplines who can make a plausible claim to belonging to the OSH professions. They include those ergonomists, toxicologists, psychologists and others who specialize in the occupational aspects of their subjects. For the purpose of this article, nevertheless, the training of these latter types of personnel will not be discussed, as the main focus of their training is often not on OSH.

Historical Perspective

In most countries, specific OSH training is of fairly recent origin. Until the Second World War, most OSH professionals received little or no formal training in their chosen calling. Few schools of public health or universities provided formal OSH courses, though some such institutions offered OSH as a subject in the context of a wider degree course, usually in public health. Segments of OSH were taught at the postgraduate level for physicians training in disciplines such as dermatology or respiratory medicine. Some engineering aspects of safety, such as machine guarding, were taught in technological and engineering schools. In most countries, even training in individual components of occupational hygiene courses were hard to find before the Second World War. The development of occupational nursing training is even more recent.

In the developed countries, OSH training received a boost during the Second World War, just as OSH services did. The mass mobilization of whole nations for the war effort led to greater emphasis on protecting the health of workers (and therefore their fighting capability or productivity with respect to the manufacturing of more munitions, warplanes, tanks and warships). At the same time, however, wartime conditions and the drafting of both university teachers and students into the armed forces made it extremely difficult to set up formal courses of OSH training. After the Second World War, however, many such courses were established, some with the help of the generous study grants for demobilized servicemen awarded by grateful governments.

After the Second World War, most colonies of European empires achieved independence and embarked upon the path of industrialization to a greater or lesser extent as a means to national development. Before long, such developing countries found themselves confronting the ills of the industrial revolution of nineteenth-century Europe, but within a much telescoped time span and on an unprecedented scale. Occupational accidents and diseases and environmental pollution became rampant. This led to the development of OSH training, although even today there are large variations in the availability of such training in these countries.

Review of Current International Initiatives

International Labour Organization (ILO)

There have been several initiatives of the ILO in recent years which relate to OSH training. Many of them relate to practical training for interventive measures at the worksite. Some other initiatives are carried out in collaboration with national governments (Rantanen and Lehtinen 1991).

Other ILO activities since the 1970s have been carried on largely in developing countries throughout the world. Several such activities relate to the upgrading of training of factory inspectors in countries such as Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, Tanzania, Thailand, and Zimbabwe.

The ILO, together with other United Nations agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme, has also assisted in the establishment or upgrading of national institutes of OSH, the training functions of which are usually among their top priorities.

The ILO has also produced several practical monographs which are very useful as training materials for OSH courses (Kogi, Phoon and Thurman 1989).

World Health Organization (WHO)

The WHO has held in recent years a number of important international and regional conferences and workshops on OSH training. In 1981, a conference entitled “Training of Occupational Health Personnel” was held under the auspices of the Regional Office for Europe of the WHO. In the same year, the WHO convoked with the ILO a Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health which focused on “educational and training in occupational health, safety and ergonomics” (WHO 1981). That meeting assessed the needs for education and training at different levels, developed policies in education and training and advised on methodology and programmes for education and training (WHO 1988).

In 1988 a WHO Study Group published a report entitled Training and Education in Occupational Health to address particularly the new policies on primary health care strategies adopted by the WHO member states, new needs resulting from technological developments and new approaches to health promotion at work (WHO 1988).

International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH)

In 1985, the ICOH established a Scientific Committee on Education and Training in Occupational Health. This Committee has organized four international conferences as well as mini-symposia on the subject in the International Congresses on Occupational Health (ICOH 1987). Among the conclusions of the second conference, the need to develop training strategies and training methodologies received prominent mention in the list of priority issues (ICOH 1989).

A main feature of the third conference was the methodology of OSH training, including such functions as learning by participation, problem-based learning and evaluation of courses, teaching and students (ICOH 1991).

Regional initiatives

In different parts of the world, regional bodies have organized training activities in OSH. For example, the Asian Association of Occupational Health, established in 1954, has a Technical Committee in Occupational Health Education which conducts surveys on training of medical students and related subjects.

Types of Professional Programmes

Degree-granting and similar programmes

Probably the prototype of degree-granting and similar programmes is the sort which was developed in schools of public health or equivalent establishments. Higher education for public health is a relatively recent development. In the United States, the first school dedicated to this purpose was established in 1916 as the Institute of Hygiene at Johns Hopkins University. At that time, the overriding public health concerns centred around the communicable diseases. As time went on, education about the prevention and control of man-made hazards and about occupational health drew increasing emphasis in the training programmes of schools of public health (Sheps 1976).

Schools of public health offer OSH courses for a postgraduate diploma or for the degree of Master of Public Health, allowing students to concentrate in occupational health. Usually entry requirements include the possession of a tertiary educational qualification. Some schools insist upon relevant prior experience in OSH as well. The duration of training on a full-time basis is usually one year for the diploma and two years for the Master’s course.

Some of the schools train the different OSH personnel together in core courses, with training in the specific OSH disciplines (e.g., occupational medicine, hygiene or nursing) being offered to students specializing in these areas. This common training is probably a great advantage, as trainees of the different OSH disciplines could develop a greater understanding of each other’s functions and a better experience of team work.

Especially in recent years, schools of medicine, nursing and engineering have offered courses similar to those in schools of public health.

A few universities are offering OSH courses at the basic or undergraduate level. Unlike the traditional OSH tertiary courses, admission to which is usually dependent upon the acquisition of a previous degree, these newer courses admit students who have just graduated from high school. Much controversy still surrounds the merits of this development. Proponents of such courses argue that they produce more OSH professionals in less time and at lower cost. Their opponents argue that OSH practitioners are more effective if they build their OSH training on a basic discipline into which they integrate their special OSH practice, such as occupational medicine or nursing. Knowledge of basic sciences may be acquired at the specialization level if they have not been taught as part of undergraduate training.

Training courses in OSH for physicians vary in their clinical component. The conference, mentioned above, on the training of occupational health personnel organized by the WHO/Regional Office for Europe emphasized that “occupational medicine is fundamentally a clinical skill and its practitioners must be fully competent in clinical medicine”. It must also be stressed that the diagnosis of chemical intoxication among workers is largely clinical, as is the differentiation between “occupational disease” and other diseases and their management (Phoon 1986). It has become, therefore, a worldwide trend to insist upon postings to different clinics as part of the training of the occupational physician. In the United States and Canada, for example, trainees undergo a four-year residency programme which includes a substantial clinical component in such subjects as dermatology and respiratory medicine in addition to the curriculum required for the degree of Master of Public Health or its equivalent.

Formal training for occupational nurses probably varies even more in different parts of the world than that for occupational physicians. These differences hinge on the variations of responsibilities and functions of occupational nurses. Some countries define occupational health nursing as “the application of nursing principles in conserving the health of workers in all occupations. It involves prevention, recognition, and treatment of illness and injury and requires special skills and knowledge in the fields of health education and counselling, environmental health, rehabilitation and human relations” (Kono and Nishida 1991).On the other hand, other countries understand occupational nursing as the role of the nurse in an interdisciplinary occupational health team, who is expected to participate in all the fields of general health management, delivery of health services, environmental control, healthy and safe working procedures and OSH education. A survey in Japan showed, however, that not all the graduates from an occupational nursing staff took part in all these activities. This was probably due to a lack of understanding of the nurse’s role in OSH and to inadequate training in some of the fields (Kono and Nishida 1991).

The discipline of occupational hygiene has been defined by the American Industrial Hygiene Association as the science and art devoted to the recognition, evaluation and control of those environmental factors and stresses, arising in or from the workplace, which may cause sickness, impaired health and well-being, or significant discomfort and inefficiency among workers or among the citizens of the community. Speciality training has also emerged within the general field of occupational hygiene, including that in chemistry, engineering, noise, radiation, air pollution and toxicology.

Curricula for Occupational Safety and Health Personnel

The detailed contents of the curricula for the training of occupational physicians, nurses, hygienists and safety personnel, as recommended by the 1981 Joint ILO/WHO Committee an Occupational Health mentioned above will be represented in the pages to follow. As regards the main subject areas to be taught, the Committee recommends:

• organization of occupational safety and health services, their activities, legislation and regulations
• occupational medicine
• occupational hygiene
• occupational safety
• work physiology and ergonomics, dealing particularly with the adaptation of work to man, but also with the readjustment of the handicapped to work
• occupational psychology, sociology and health education.

According to the profile of the personnel, the educational programmes will go more or less deeply into different subjects to meet the demands of the respective professions, as discussed below for several categories.

It is difficult to comment in detail what should go into the curricula of OSH courses. It is generally agreed that such courses should have a greater input of behavioural sciences than is now the case, but such input should be relevant to the sociocultural milieu of a particular country or region for which a course is designed. Moreover, OSH should not be taught in isolation from the general health services and the community health situation in a given country or region. The fundamentals of management science should be included in OSH curricula to improve the understanding of organizational structures and practices in enterprises as well as to enhance administrative skills of OSH professionals. The art of communication and the ability to conduct an investigation of OSH problems scientifically and to formulate solutions were also recommended for inclusion in all OSH curricula (Phoon 1985b).

Physicians and nurses

All medical students should be taught some occupational health. In some countries, there are separate courses; in others, occupational health is dealt with in such courses as physiology, pharmacology and toxicology, public health, social medicine and internal medicine. Nevertheless, medical students do not, as a rule, acquire sufficient knowledge and skill to allow them to practice occupational health independently, and some postgraduate training in occupational health and safety is necessary. For further specialization in occupational health (e.g., occupational diseases, or even more narrow fields, like occupational neurology or dermatology), postgraduate training programmes should be available. For nurses active in occupational health services, both long-term and short-term courses need to be organized, depending on their range of activities.

Figure 1 lists subjects to be included in specialized postgraduate training for physicians and nurses.

Figure 1. Postgraduate training syllabus for physicians and nurses.

Safety and health engineers and safety officers

The practice of occupational safety is concerned with such failures of materials, machines, processes and structures as may give rise to dangerous situations, including the release of harmful agents. The aim of education in this field is to enable students to foresee danger, both at the planning stage of projects and in existing situations, to quantify the danger and to design measures to combat it. Training in occupational safety involves the student in a substantial study of selected topics from engineering and materials science, particularly those related to mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical and structural engineering.

Separate curricular units would be concerned, for example, with the structure and strength of materials, in mechanical engineering; with forces in structures, in civil engineering; with handling and transportation of chemicals, in chemical engineering; with design standards, protective equipment and the theory of preventive maintenance, in electrical engineering; and with the behaviour of strata, in mining engineering.

Safety engineers, in addition to acquiring a basic knowledge, should also undergo a course of specialization. The 1981 Joint ILO/WHO Committee recommendations for a specialized safety engineering course of study are listed in figure 2.

Figure 2. A syllabus for specialization in safety engineering.

Courses can be either full-time, part-time or “sandwich courses”—in the lattermost case, periods of studying are interspersed with periods of practice. The selection of which courses to take is very much a matter of individual circumstances or preference. This is especially true since many safety practitioners have extensive knowledge gained through on-the-job experience in particular industries. However, within a large community or a country, there should preferably be a large range of choices to cater for all these different needs.

The recent enormous advances in communications technology should enable the greater usage of distance-learning courses which can be delivered both to remote areas of a country or even across national frontiers. Unfortunately, such technology is still quite expensive, and countries or areas which need such distance-learning capabilities most may be the very ones least able to afford them.

Primary health care practitioners

There is a severe shortage of OSH professionals in developing countries. In addition, among primary health care practitioners and health professionals as a whole, there is a tendency to direct their main activities to curative services. This should be counterbalanced with the help of appropriate training to emphasize the great value of instituting preventive measures at the workplace in collaboration with other responsible parties such as workers and managers. This would help, to a certain extent, to alleviate the problems caused by the present shortage of OSH personnel in developing countries (Pupo-Nogueira and Radford 1989).

A number of developing countries have recently embarked on short courses of OSH training for primary health care and public health personnel. There is a wide spectrum of organizations which have undertaken such training. They include national productivity boards (Phoon 1985a), farmers’ associations, national safety councils, national institutes of health, and professional bodies such as medical and nurses’ associations (Cordes and Rea 1989).

A scarcity of OSH professionals affects not only developing countries, but many developed ones as well. In the United States, one response to this problem took the form of a joint report by a preventive medicine and internal medicine study group that recommended that training programmes in internal medicine emphasize controls of hazards in the workplace and in the environment, since most patients seen by internists are members of the workforce. Furthermore, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Medical Association have published several monographs on occupational health for the family physician. A study by the American Institute of Medicine reaffirmed the role of the primary care physician in occupational health, outlined the basic skills required and emphasized the need to enhance occupational health activity in basic training and continuing education (Ellington and Lowis 1991). In both developed and developing countries, however, there is still an inadequate number of OSH training programmes for primary health care personnel and an insufficient number of trained personnel.

Multidisciplinary training

Training in the multidisciplinary nature of OSH can be enhanced by making sure that everyone who trains is fully familiar with the roles, activities and areas of concern of the other OSH personnel. In an OSH course in Scotland, for example, members of the different OSH professions participate in the teaching programme. The students are also provided with self-instruction packages designed to give them detailed knowledge of and insight into the different OSH professional areas. Extensive use is also made of experiential learning techniques such as role-playing simulations and participative case studies. For example, students are asked to complete personal checklists on how each particular area of occupational health activity is likely to affect them in their own work situations, and on how they can cooperate effectively with other occupational health professionals.

In the running of a multidisciplinary OSH course, a key element is the mix of learners of different professional backgrounds in the same class. The course material, such as group exercises and essays, must be carefully selected without any bias to a particular discipline. Lecturers must also receive training in the setting of multidisciplinary questions and problems (D’Auria, Hawkins and Kenny 1991).

Continuing Education

In professional education as a whole, there is an increasing awareness of the need for continuing education. In the field of OSH, new knowledge concerning old hazards and new problems arising from changes in technology are developing so rapidly that no OSH practitioner could hope to keep up to date without making a systematic and constant effort to do so.

Continuing education in OSH can be formal or informal, voluntary or obligatory in order to maintain certification. It is essential for every OSH practitioner to keep up with reading the key professional journals, at least in his or her own disciplines. When a new hazard is encountered, it would be very useful to mount a literature search on that subject through a library. If such a library is unavailable, the CIS service of the ILO could be asked to undertake that service instead. Moreover, having continual and direct access to at least a few up-to-date texts on OSH is essential to any kind of OSH practice.

More formal kinds of continuing education could take the form of conferences, workshops, lectures, journal clubs or seminars. Usually tertiary institutions of learning or professional organizations can provide the means of delivery of such programmes. Whenever possible, there should be annual events in which a broader range of views or expertise could be canvassed than is usually available within the framework of a small community or town. Regional or international conferences or seminars can provide extremely useful opportunities for participants, not only to take advantage of the formal programme but also to exchange information with other practitioners or researchers outside the formal sessions.

Nowadays, more and more OSH professional organizations require members to attend a minimum number of continuing education activities as a condition for extension of certification or membership. Usually only the fact of attendance at approved functions is required. Attendance by itself is, of course, no guarantee that the participant has benefited from being present. Alternatives such as subjecting OSH professionals to regular examinations are also fraught with problems. Within a single OSH discipline, there is such a wide diversity of practice even within the same country that it is extremely difficult to devise an examination equitable to all the OSH practitioners concerned.

Self-learning

In every OSH training course there should be emphasis on the need for self-learning and its continuing practice. To this end, training in information retrieval and critical analysis of published literature is imperative. Training on the use of computers to facilitate obtaining of information from the many excellent OSH resources around the world would be also beneficial. Several courses have been developed in recent years to promote self-learning and information management through microcomputers (Koh, Aw and Lun 1992).

Curriculum Development

There is an increasing demand on the part of trainees and the community to ensure that curricula are constantly evaluated and improved. Many modern curricula are competency-based. A series of professional competencies required is first compiled. Since competence may be defined by different groups in different ways, extensive consultations on this matter should be held with faculty members and OSH practitioners (Pochyly 1973). In addition, there is a need for consultations with “consumers” (e.g., students, workers and employers), an inbuilt evaluation programme and well-defined but flexible educational objectives (Phoon 1988). Sometimes the establishment of advisory committees on curriculum or teaching programmes, which normally include faculty and student representatives, but sometimes also involve members of the general community, can provide a useful forum for such consultations.

Infrastructure Development

Infrastructure is often ignored in discussions on OSH training and education. Yet supporting facilities and human resources such as computers, libraries, efficient administrative staff and procedures and safe and convenient access are among the host of infrastructure considerations which could be crucial to the success of training courses. Proper monitoring of students’ progress, counselling and assistance of students with problems, health care of students and their families (where indicated), minding of students’ children, canteen and recreational facilities and provision of lockers or cupboards for the storage of personal possessions of trainees are all important details which should receive careful attention.

Faculty Recruitment and Development

The quality and popularity of a training programme are often vital factors in determining the quality of staff applying for a vacant position. Obviously, other factors such as satisfactory service conditions and opportunities for career and intellectual development are also important.

Careful consideration should be given to job specifications and job requirements. Faculty should have the necessary OSH qualifications, though flexibility should be exercised to allow the recruitment of staff from non-OSH disciplines who may be able to make special contributions to teaching or especially promising applicants who may have the capability but not all the qualifications or experience normally required for the job. Whenever possible, faculty should have practical OSH experience.

After recruitment, it is the responsibility of the leadership and senior members of the school or department to make sure that new staff are given as much encouragement and opportunity to develop as possible. New staff should be inducted into the culture of the organization but also encouraged to express themselves and to participate in decision-making processes related to teaching and research programmes. Feedback should be given to them concerning their teaching performance in a sensitive and constructive manner. Whenever necessary, offers of help to remedy identified limitations should be given. Many departments have found the regular holding of teaching or evaluation workshops for staff to be extremely useful. Cross-postings to industries and sabbatical leave are other important measures for staff development. Some extent of consultancy work, which could be either clinical, worksite or laboratory (depending on the discipline and areas of activity of the faculty member) helps to make academic teaching more practical.

Teaching Venues

Classrooms should be designed and furnished according to appropriate ergonomic principles and equipped with audio-visual aid equipment and video projection facilities. The lighting and acoustics should be satisfactory. Access to an exit should be located in such a way as to minimize the disturbance of an ongoing class.

Proper principles of OSH should be applied to the design and construction of laboratories. Such safety equipment as showers, eye washing facilities, first aid supplies and resuscitation equipment and fume cupboards should be installed or made available where indicated, and laboratories should be bright, airy and odourless.

Venues for field visits should be chosen to provide a wide range of OSH experiences for the trainees. If possible, worksites with different levels of OSH standards should be chosen. However, on no account should the safety or health of trainees be compromised.

Locations for clinical work would very much depend on the nature and level of the training course. In some circumstances, bedside teaching may be indicated to demonstrate the appropriate clinical approach to skills in history taking. In some other circumstances, presentation of cases with or without patients could serve the same purpose.

Examinations and Assessment

The recent trend has been to seek alternatives to administering an all-important and single final examination at the end of a course. Some courses have abolished formal examinations altogether and replaced them with assignments or periodic assessments. Some other courses have a combination of such assignments and assessments, open book examinations and closed book examinations as well. It is nowadays increasingly understood that examinations or assessments are as much measures of the quality of courses and teachers as of the trainees.

A feedback of trainees’ opinions concerning the entire course or components thereof through questionnaires or discussions is invaluable in the evaluation or revision of a course. As far as possible, all courses should be constantly evaluated, at least on an annual basis, and revised if necessary.

Insofar as modes of examination are concerned, essay questions can test organization, integrating ability and writing skills. The precision and validity of essay examinations, however, have been found to be weak. Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are less subjective, but good ones are difficult to formulate and do not allow a display of practical knowledge. Modified essay questions (MEQs) differ from essays or MCQs in that the candidate is presented with a progressive amount of information about a problem. It avoids cueing by requesting short-answer responses rather than presenting candidates with alternatives from which to choose the appropriate answer. Oral examinations can measure problem-solving skills, professional judgement, communication skills and ability to retain composure under stress. The main difficulty with the oral examination is the potential for so-called “lack of objectivity”. The oral examination can be made more reliable by imposing some structure on it (Verma, Sass-Kortsak and Gaylor 1991). Perhaps the best alternative is to use a battery of these different types of examination rather than to rely on one or two of them only.

Certification and Accreditation

The word certification usually refers to the conferment upon a professional of authorization to practise. Such certification could be conferred by a national board or a college or an institution of practitioners of an OSH discipline. Usually, the OSH professional is given certification only after fulfilling a stipulated period of training in connection with an approved course or positions and also upon passing an examination. In general, such “global certification” is valid for life, unless there is proven professional negligence or misconduct. However, there are other forms of accreditation which require periodic renewal. They include such accreditation as that required in some countries to either conduct special statutory medical examinations or to report on radiographs of asbestos-exposed persons.

Accreditation , on the other hand, refers to the recognition of OSH courses by a national board or professional organization or a scholarship-granting body. Such accreditation should be subject to periodic reappraisal to ensure that courses keep to an appropriate level of currency and effectiveness.

A New Approach to Learning and Training: A Case Study by the ILO-FINNIDA African Safety and Health Project

Abuya : What’s the matter? You look worn out.

Mwangi : I am worn out—and disgusted. I was up half the night getting ready for this lecture I just gave and I don’t think it went very well. I couldn’t get anything out of them—no questions, no enthusiasm. For all I know, they didn’t understand a word I said.

Kariuki : I know what you mean. Last week I was having a terrible time trying to explain chemical safety in Swahili.

Abuya : I don’t think it’s the language. You were probably just talking over their heads. How much technical information do these workers really need to know anyway?

Kariuki : Enough to protect themselves. If we can’t get the point across, we’re just wasting our time. Mwangi, why didn’t you try asking them something or tell a story?

Mwangi : I couldn’t figure out what to do. I know there has to be a better way, but I was never trained in how to do these lectures right.

Abuya : Why all the fuss? Just forget about it! With all the inspections we have to do, who’s got time to worry about training?

The above discussion in an African factory inspectorate, which could take place anywhere, highlights a real problem: how to get the message through in a training session. Using a real problem as a discussion starter (or trigger) is an excellent training technique to identify potential obstacles to training, their causes and potential solutions. We have used this discussion as a role play in our Training of Trainers’ workshops in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The ILO-FINNIDA African Safety and Health Project is part of the ILO’s technical cooperation activities aimed to improve occupational safety and health training and information services in 21 African countries where English is commonly spoken. It is sponsored by FINNIDA, the Finnish International Development Agency. The Project took place from 1991 to 1994 with a budget of US$5 million. One of the main concerns in the implementation of the Project was to determine the most appropriate training approach by which to facilitate high quality learning. In the following case study we will describe the practical implementation of the training approach, the Training the Trainers’ (TOT) course (Weinger 1993).

Development of a New Training Approach

In the past, the training approach in most African factory inspectorates, and also in many technical cooperation projects of the ILO, has been based on randomly selected, isolated topics of occupational safety and health (OSH) which were presented mainly by using lecturing methods. The African Safety and Health Project conducted the first pilot course in TOT in 1992 for 16 participating countries. This course was implemented in two parts, the first part dealing with basic principles of adult education (how people learn, how to establish learning objectives and select teaching contents, how to design the curriculum and select instructional methods and learning activities and how to improve personal teaching skills) and the second part with practical training in OSH based on individual assignments which each participant completed during a four month’s time period following the first part of the course.

The main characteristics of this new approach are participation and action orientation. Our training does not reflect the traditional model of classroom learning where participants are passive recipients of information and the lecture is the dominant instructional method. In addition to its action orientation and participatory training methods, this approach is based on the latest research in modern adult education and takes a cognitive and activity-theoretical view of learning and teaching (Engeström 1994).

On the basis of the experience gained during the pilot course, which was extremely successful, a set of detailed course material was prepared, call the Training of Trainers Package , which consists of two parts, a trainer’s manual and a supply of participants’ handout matter. This package was used as a guideline during planning sessions, attended by from 20 to 25 factory inspectors over a period of ten days, and concerned with establishing national TOT courses in Africa. By the spring of 1994, national TOT courses had been implemented in two African countries, Kenya and Ethiopia.

High Quality Learning

There are four key components of high quality learning.

Motivation for learning . Motivation occurs when participants see the “use-value” of what they are learning. It is stimulated when they can perceive the gap that separates what they know and what they need to know to solve a problem.

Organization of subject matter. The content of learning is too commonly thought of as separate facts stored in the brain like items in boxes on a shelf. In reality, people construct models, or mental pictures, of the world while learning. In promoting cognitive learning, teachers try to organize facts into models for better learning and include explanatory principles or concepts (the “but whys” behind a fact or skill).

Advancing through steps in the learning process . In the learning process, the participant is like an investigator looking for a model by which to understand the subject matter. With the help of the teacher, the participant forms this model, practices using it and evaluates its usefulness. This process can be divided into the following six steps:

• orientation
• integrating new knowledge (internalization)
• application
• programme critique
• participant evaluation.

Social interaction . The social interaction between participants in a training session is an essential component of learning. In group activities, participants learn from one another.

Planning training for high quality learning

The kind of education aimed at particular skills and competencies is called training . The goal of training is to facilitate high quality learning and it is a process that takes place in a series of steps. It requires careful planning at each stage and each step is equally important. There are many ways of breaking the training into components but from the point of view of the cognitive conception of learning, the task of planning a training course can be analysed into six steps.

Step 1: Conduct a needs assessment (know your audience).

Step 2: Formulate learning objectives.

Step 3: Develop an orientation basis or “road map” for the course.

Step 4: Develop the curriculum, establishing its contents and associated training methods and using a chart to outline your curriculum.

Step 5: Teach the course.

Step 6: Evaluate the course and follow up on the evaluation.

Practical Implementation of National TOT Courses

Based on the above-mentioned training approach and experience from the first pilot course, two national TOT courses were implemented in Africa, the one in Kenya in 1993 and the other in Ethiopia in 1994.

Training needs were based on the work activity of factory inspectors and were determined by means of a pre-workshop questionnaire and a discussion with the course participants about their everyday work and about the kinds of skills and competencies necessary to carry it out (see figure 1). The course has thus been designed primarily for factory inspectors (in our national TOT courses, usually 20 to 25 inspectors participated), but it could be extended to other personnel who may need to carry out safety and health training, such as shop stewards, foremen, and safety and health officers.

Figure 1. Orientation basis for the factory inspector's work activity.

A compilation of course objectives for the national TOT course was assembled step by step in cooperation with the participants, and is given immediately below.

Objectives of the national TOT course

The aims of the training of trainers (TOT) course are as follows:

• Increase participants’ understanding of the changing role and tasks of factory inspectors from immediate enforcement to long-term advisory service, including training and consultation.
• Increase participants’ understanding of the basic principles of high quality learning and instruction.
• Increase participants’ understanding of the variety of skills involved in planning training programmes: identification of training needs, formulation of learning objectives, development of training curricula and materials, selection of appropriate teaching methods, effective presentation and programme evaluation.
• Enhance participants’ skills in effective communication for application during inspections and consultation, as well as in formal training sessions.
• Facilitate the development of short and long-term training plans in which new instructional practices will be implemented.

Course contents

The key subject areas or curriculum units that guided the implementation of the TOT course in Ethiopia are outlined in figure 2. This outline may also serve as an orientation basis for the whole TOT course.

Figure 2. The key subject areas of the TOT course.

Determining training methods

The external aspect of the teaching method is immediately observable when you step into a classroom. You might observe a lecture, a discussion, group or individual work. However, what you do not see is the most essential aspect of teaching: the kind of mental work being accomplished by the student at any given moment. This is called the internal aspect of the teaching method.

Teaching methods can be divided into three main groups:

• Instructional presentation : participant presentations, lectures, demonstrations, audio-visual presentations
• Independent assignment : tests or exams, small group activities, assigned reading, use of self-guided learning materials, role plays
• Cooperative instruction

Most of the above methods were used in our TOT courses. However, the method one selects depends on the learning objectives one wants to achieve. Each method or learning activity should have a function. These instructional functions , which are the activities of a teacher, correspond with the steps in the learning process described above and can help guide your selection of methods. There follows a list of the nine instructional functions:

• preparation
• transmitting new knowledge
• consolidating what has been taught
• practising (development of knowledge into skills)
• application (solving new problems with the help of new knowledge)

Planning the curriculum: Charting your course

One of the functions of curriculum or course plan is to assist in guiding and monitoring the teaching and learning process. The curriculum can be divided into two parts, the general and the specific.

The general curriculum gives an overall picture of the course: its goals, objectives, contents, participants and guidelines for their selection, the teaching approach (how the course will be conducted) and the organizational arrangements, such as pre-course tasks. This general curriculum would usually be your course description and a draft programme or list of topics.

A specific curriculum provides detailed information on what one will teach and how one plans to teach it. A written curriculum prepared in chart form will serve as a good outline for designing a curriculum specific enough to serve as a guide in the implementation of the training. Such a chart includes the following categories:

Time : the estimated time needed for each learning activity

Curriculum Units : primary subject areas

Topics : themes within each curriculum unit

Instructional function: the function of each learning activity in helping to achieve your learning objectives

Activities : the steps for conducting each learning activity

Materials : the resources and materials needed for each activity

Instructor : the trainer responsible for each activity (when there are several trainers)

To design the curriculum with the aid of the chart format, follow the steps outlined below. Completed charts are illustrated in connection with a completed curriculum in Weinger 1993.

• Specify the primary subject areas of the course (curriculum units) which are based on your objectives and general orientation basis.
• List the topics you will cover in each of those areas.
• Plan to include as many instructional functions as possible in each subject area in order to advance through all the steps of the learning process.
• Choose methods which fulfil each function and estimate the amount of time required. Record the time, topic and function on the chart.
• In the activities column, provide guidelines for the instructor on how to conduct the activity. Entries can also include main points to be covered in this session. This column should offer a clear picture of exactly what will occur in the course during this time period.
• List the materials, such as worksheets, handouts or equipment required for each activity.
• Make sure to include appropriate breaks when designing a cycle of activities.

Evaluating the course and follow-up

The last step in the training process is evaluation and follow-up. Unfortunately, it is a step that is often forgotten, ignored and, sometimes, avoided. Evaluation , or the determination of the degree to which course objectives were met, is an essential component of training. This should include both programme critique (by the course administrators) and participant evaluation .

Participants should have an opportunity to evaluate the external factors of teaching: the instructor’s presentation skills, techniques used, facilities and course organization. The most common evaluation tools are post-course questionnaires and pre- and post-tests.

Follow-up is a necessary support activity in the training process. Follow-up activities should be designed to help the participants apply and transfer what they have learned to their jobs. Examples of follow-up activities for our TOT courses include:

• action plans and projects
• formal follow-up sessions or workshops

Selection of trainers

Trainers were selected who were familiar with the cognitive learning approach and had good communication skills. During the pilot course in 1992 we used international experts who had been involved in development of this learning approach during the 1980s in Finland. In the national courses we have had a mixture of experts: one international expert, one or two regional experts who had participated in the first pilot course and two to three national resource persons who either had responsibility for training in their own countries or who had participated earlier in this training approach. Whenever it was possible, project personnel also participated.

Discussion and Summary

Factory training needs assessment

The factory visit and subsequent practice teaching are a highlight of the workshop. This training activity was used for workplace training needs assessment (curriculum unit VI A, figure 1). The recommendation here would be to complete the background on theory and methods prior to the visit. In Ethiopia, we scheduled the visit prior to addressing ourselves to the question of teaching methods. While two factories were looked at, we could have extended the time for needs assessment by eliminating one of the factory visits. Thus, visiting groups will visit and focus on only that factory where they will be actually training.

The risk mapping component of the workshop (this is also part of curriculum unit VI A) was even more successful in Ethiopia than in Kenya. The risk maps were incorporated in the practice teaching in the factories and were highly motivating for the workers. In future workshops, we would stress that specific hazards be highlighted wherever they occur, rather than, for example, using a single green symbol to represent any of a variety of physical hazards. In this way, the extent of a particular type of hazard is more clearly reflected.

Training methods

The instructional methods focused on audio-visual techniques and the use of discussion starters. Both were quite successful. In a useful addition to the session on transparencies, the participants were asked to work in groups to develop a transparency of their own on the contents of an assigned article.

Flip charts and brainstorming were new teaching methods for participants. In fact, a flip chart was developed especially for the workshop. In addition to being an excellent training aid, the use of flip charts and “magic markers” is a very inexpensive and practical substitute for the overhead projector, which is unavailable to most inspectors in the developing countries.

Videotaped microteaching

“Microteaching”, or instruction in the classroom focusing on particular local problems, made use of videotape and subsequent critique by fellow participants and resource people, and was very successful. In addition to enhancing the working of external teaching methods, the taping was a good opportunity for comment on areas for improvement in content prior to the factory teaching.

A common error, however, was the failure to link discussion starters and brainstorm activities with the content or message of an activity. The method was perfunctorily executed, and its effect ignored. Other common errors were the use of excessively technical terminology and the failure to make the training relevant to the audience’s needs by using specific workplace examples. But the later presentations in the factory were designed to clearly reflect the criticisms that participants had received the day before.

Practice teaching in the factory

In their evaluation of the practice teaching sessions in the factory, participants were extremely impressed with the use of a variety of teaching methods, including audiovisuals, posters that they developed, flip charts, brainstorming, role plays, “buzz groups” and so on. Most groups also made use of an evaluation questionnaire, a new experience for them. Of particular note was their success in engaging their audiences, after having relied solely on the lecture method in the past. Common areas for improvement were time management and the use of overly technical terms and explanations. In the future, the resource persons should also try to ensure that all groups include the application and evaluation steps in the learning process.

Course planning as a training experience

During these two courses it was possible to observe significant changes in the participants’ understanding of the six steps in high quality learning.

In the last course a section on writing objectives, where each participant writes a series of instructional objectives, was added into the programme. Most participants had never written training objectives and this activity was extremely useful.

As for the use of the curriculum chart in planning, we have seen definite progress among all participants and mastery by some. This area could definitely benefit from more time. In future workshops, we would add an activity where participants use the chart to follow one topic through the learning process, using all of the instructional functions. There is still a tendency to pack the training with content material (topics) and to intersperse, without due consideration of their relevance, the various instructional functions throughout a series of topics. It is also necessary that trainers emphasize those activities that are chosen to accomplish the application step in the learning process, and that they acquire more practice in developing learners’ tasks. Application is a new concept for most and difficult to incorporate in the instructional process.

Finally the use of the term curriculum unit was difficult and sometimes confusing. The simple identification and ordering of relevant topic areas is an adequate beginning. It was also obvious that many other concepts of the cognitive learning approach were difficult, such as the concepts of orientation basis, external and internal factors in learning and teaching, instructional functions and some others.

In summary, we would add more time to the theory and curriculum development sections, as outlined above, and to the planning of future curriculum, which affords the opportunity of observing individual ability to apply the theory.

The ILO-FINNIDA African Safety and Health Project has undertaken a particularly challenging and demanding task: to change our ideas and old practices about learning and training. The problem with talking about learning is that learning has lost its central meaning in contemporary usage. Learning has come to be synonymous with taking in information . However, taking in information is only distantly related to real learning. Through real learning we re-create ourselves. Through real learning we become able to do something we were never able to do before (Senge 1990). This is the message in our Project’s new approach on learning and training.

" DISCLAIMER: The ILO does not take responsibility for content presented on this web portal that is presented in any language other than English, which is the language used for the initial production and peer-review of original content. Certain statistics have not been updated since the production of the 4th edition of the Encyclopaedia (1998)."

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A Study of the Effectiveness of Workplace Health and Safety Programmes in a University Setting in Canada

Zakia hoque.

Division of Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St John's, NL, A1B 3V6, Canada

Veeresh Gadag

Atanu sarkar, introduction:.

Nearly a quarter-million people work in universities in Canada, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors. Although each university provides occupational health and safety services and training programmes to their employees, there have been no studies conducted on the impact of such programmes on employees’ knowledge, attitude and behaviour. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of dissemination of information of workplace health and safety programmes to workers at a Canadian university.

The study compared two cross-sectional online surveys of employees of a Canadian university regarding workplace health and safety with a previously conducted cross-sectional study and thematic analysis of key informant interviews to address the issues raised in the surveys.

Participation in health and safety presentations could enhance understanding and practices of safety. Age, employment status and duration of employment were associated with the levels of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of employees and graduate students. The key informant interviews highlighted some new initiatives such as the establishment of workplace health and safety committees in all university buildings; the development of a safety app and health and safety management system; routine annual inspections of all university building offices and laboratories; new orientation for undergraduate students where general safety rules are described.

Discussion:

University should have regular presentations on the available health and safety programmes and should increase the number of safety training programmes and keep track of the employees that have not received any training, particularly for those working in hazardous environments.

I NTRODUCTION

The labour force in the university sector in Canada is large and has considerable occupational diversity. According to Statistics Canada, out of 17 million-member workforce, 1.3 million (8%) are in educational services, and almost 20% of these individuals (~250,000) work in various universities.[ 1 ] The 2016 census shows that educational services in Canada had the fourth-highest rate of growth and more than half of this increase was in universities.[ 2 ] The working environment in universities is highly diverse, as there are a wide range of disciplines involving teaching, research, administration and maintenance. Due to this multifaceted working environment in the universities, employees encounter various types of occupational health risks. Despite the complexity of occupational risks, little has been written about occupational health and safety programmes of the university employment sector.[ 3 ]

In Canada, workers are covered by provincial or federal labour codes, depending on the sectors in which they work. While workers in mining, transportation, and the federal government are covered by the Canada Labor Codes, other workers such as employees of universities are covered by provincial health and safety legislation.[ 4 ]

Venables and Allender (2007) described the occupational health services in 93 universities in the UK by drawing on data from surveys carried out in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Most survey responses were received from universities and in-house services. The surveys requested self-completed information on occupational health services from each university. The results indicated that 50% of the universities had an in-house health service, 32% relied on a contractor, 9% used the campus student health service, and a further 9% had an ad hoc arrangement or no arrangement. On average, the service was poor, as usually only one half-day doctor with one full-time nurse and a part-time clerk were available to provide service. The wide variation among universities in staffing levels suggested that some universities might have less-adequate services than others.[ 3 ] A study examining the safety concerns of faculty members of a university campus in USA (Alabama) showed that women faculty members took more personal safety precautions than men and felt more strongly about the need for the improvement of safety features on campus. A 160-item questionnaire was distributed to the faculty members asking about socio-demographic information, daily campus activities, personal safety protection taken while on campus, awareness and attitudes about safety on campus, and reported cases of victimization on campus. A few months later, the authors examined the safety awareness of male and female staff members in the same university using the same questionnaire. The results indicated that although female staff members reported more regarding acts of violence against them than male staff members, there was not much difference in their attitudes towards improving safety features on campus. Faculty and staff members identified that they like to use avoidance strategies such as walking with a friend or using objects as a weapon rather than contacting campus security.[ 5 ]

All Canadian universities have Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) or similar departments through which Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) services are provided. All the universities follow a similar practice such as a) having health and safety committees on the campus, b) promoting health and safety and providing risk management services, c) conducting regular workplace inspections and reviewing incident investigative reports, e) creating annual reports about incidents, lessons learned, and providing recommendations to senior administrators, and e) organizing health and safety information session for the employees. The EHS unit mainly offers training on fire safety, first aid, laboratory safety, biosafety, X-ray safety, radiation and laser safety, WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System), contractor safety, respiratory protection, ergonomics, hazardous waste management and disposal and also provides health and safety committee representative training.[ 6 ]

Despite the existence of occupational health and safety programmes in various Canadian universities, recorded evaluation of such programmes is sparse. Considering the large workforces in universities and their unabated positive growth, it is crucial to evaluate the existing occupational health and safety programmes in Canadian university settings. The aims of this study were: a) to evaluate the effectiveness of health and safety programmes through well-designed surveys of faculty members, staff and graduate students of a Canadian university (Memorial University of Newfoundland or MUN); and b) to conduct a key informant interview of the officials of MUN responsible for the operation of the health and safety unit to address the issues raised in the surveys.

In 2013, MUN contracted a third-party consultant to conduct an impartial assessment of the safety culture at the university. The consulting group was asked to do a complete assessment of the current state of health and safety programmes offered by MUN through the Office of the Chief Risk Officer and to identify gaps in the programme. The consulting group surveyed about 10% of the permanent employees of MUN in 2013 and produced a report in 2014. The Office of the Chief Risk Officer called the report a ‘Gap Analysis (GA) survey’. In 2015, to address the identified gaps and to increase awareness about the health and safety programmes, the Office of the Chief Risk Officer organized several health and safety presentations for MUN employees. We sought to examine if these presentations had any effect on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of the employees and graduate students at MUN and if their level of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour are sustainable over time. As a result, in consultation with the EHS Unit in 2016, we administered two identical online surveys to employees and graduate students at MUN. The purpose of the first survey was to answer the following research questions:

• Has there been any significant improvement in the perception of the workplace health and safety of MUN employees since 2013 when the survey on gap analysis in safety culture was conducted?
• Do knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding the health and safety of MUN employees differ with respect to demographic variables?
• Is there any significant difference in the perception of safety practices between those who attended the health and safety presentations and those who did not attend these presentations?

The purpose of the second survey (using the same questionnaires of the first survey) was to assess the retention of health and safety knowledge over the period of 6 months. The intent of conducting the surveys was to gain insight into important factors that could make MUN's health and safety programmes more effective. The study also intended to explore the responses of the officials to the issues raised in the surveys.

We used a mixed-methods approach by collecting, analysing and integrating quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews) data to gain in-depth understanding and corroboration while offsetting the weaknesses inherent in using each approach by itself.[ 7 , 8 , 9 ] Approval from the ethics committee was obtained. The date of the approval 23rd August 2016.

Survey participants

The survey participants in the two surveys that we conducted, included graduate students/researchers, faculty members and staff, as they work for the MUN as employees. As the surveys were anonymous, the second survey was sent to the same entire population and not to only the respondents of the first survey. This allowed us to compare the results with those of the independent surveys to determine if there are any changes in the knowledge level of the employees on health and safety-related information.

Survey design

Two identical online surveys of MUN employees were conducted between 1) October 19, 2016 and November 30, 2016, and 2) April 10, 2017 and June 10, 2017. The purpose of the first survey was to gauge the level of uptake of the information on health and safety, disseminated by the EHS Unit to the MUN Community through their safety workshops in 2015–2016 as well as through their broader reach-out mechanisms. Further, we wanted to study the effect of the knowledge about health and safety on the attitudes and behaviour of the employees and graduate students at MUN. The second survey was conducted six months after the first survey. It targeted the same population and followed the same methodology as the first survey and aimed to understand the retention of knowledge over time and whether the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of the employees changed over time.

Our survey was developed based on input from the EHS unit. Some questions were based on questions from the GA survey with the intent of comparing the results. We also adopted some questions from the survey questionnaire of the study ‘Montana Tech Campus Safety, Security and Safety Awareness Survey’ conducted by Kristine Witt in 2011 at Montana Tech University, USA.[ 10 ] We conducted a pilot survey of some faculty members, staff and graduate students to ensure the readability, clarity, and organization of the survey questionnaire. We sent e-mails to all faculty and departments of MUN's main campus in St. John's and affiliated Grenfell campus in Corner Brooke, detailing the nature of the survey and provided a web-link (Survey Monkey ® ) to access the survey. The questionnaire with the references is presented in a supplementary file (S1) . At the beginning of the survey, online consent was obtained. The survey instrument was prepared to capture the awareness, attitudes and behaviour of employees and graduate students toward health and safety programmes offered by MUN. The questions were divided into three groups: 1. Knowledge (refers to the awareness and perception of the participants related to health and safety); 2. Attitudes (collects information on the viewpoints and beliefs of the participants about occupational health and safety); and 3. Behaviour (collects information on participants’ day-to-day safety practices/protocols at the workplace).[ 11 ] Questions 7-18, 21, 22, 25, 29, 31 and 40 were designed to test the knowledge of the participants regarding occupational health and safety; questions 19–20, 26–27 were combined to assess their attitudes; and questions 28, 30, 32, 34, 36 and 41 were grouped under behavioural questions (please refer to the questionnaire in supplementary file S1 ). The last few questions were on the perceptions of the participants about safety in specific areas on the campuses.

In the knowledge group, there are 18 questions. For each question, we assigned a score of 1 for the answer “No” and a score of 2 for the answer “Yes”. We added the scores of these 18 questions, which ranged from 18 to 36. We divided this range of responses into halves, 18–27 representing lower score and 28–36 representing higher score, following the procedure described in.[ 12 , 13 ] we used a similar procedure with four questions representing attitudes and six questions representing behaviour groups. The purpose of creating these categories was to test for the association between the levels of the knowledge, attitude, and behaviour of the participants among themselves and with the demographic variables, using frequency analysis technique.

In order to compare with the GA survey, we selected only the Yes/No-type questions (similar to the GA survey) and divided them into three broad themes: i) Environmental Health and Safety Office-related questions, ii) Faculty/Building-related questions, and iii) Department/Division-related questions.

Key informant interviews (KII)

After completing the cross-sectional surveys, we conducted KII with eight officials who have been responsible for the development and implementation of health and safety programmes at MUN. Among them, five officials were from the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) unit, two officials were from the Workplace Health and Safety Committee (WHSC) and one official was from Facilities Management (FM). The interviews were recorded in writing. A thematic content analysis approach was used for data analysis. Each transcript was reviewed and coded to identify key emerging themes. We then compared the coding of the transcripts. The first question of the interview is about the initiatives taken by the EHS unit to raise awareness about health and safety among MUN employees after 2013. For further analysis, we divided the rest of the questions into three groups. The first group is about knowledge and awareness of safety policies. Questions 2–6, 12 are included in this group. Questions 7–10 are in the group on laboratory safety and workplace hazards. Questions 11, and 13–15 are in the group of MUN facilities and services (please refer to the questionnaire in supplementary file S2 ). The primary motivation of the KII was to collect further information related to the survey questionnaire and to find answers to some of the comments made by the participants in the surveys. Therefore, some questions asked in the KII were based on the outcomes of the survey results.

Data analysis

Apart from descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests were conducted for correlation and P - value less than 0.05 was considered significant. For data analysis, SPSS (version 24) was used. For a detailed statistical analysis, please refer to the supplementary file (S3) .

In the first and second surveys, 148 and 103 valid independent respondents were identified, respectively. Table 1 shows demographic information of survey 1 and survey 2 participants. There was an increase in the level of the participants’ knowledge/awareness about MUN's health and safety policies, when compared to GA survey (please see detailed findings in Supplementary file (S4) ). There was an increase in the level of awareness among the employees about the presence of the EHS unit at MUN and improved communication with the Health and Safety Committee compared to GA results. On the other hand, there were lower levels of knowledge about MUN's working alone procedures, and about AED (automated external defibrillator) locations. In all three surveys, the participants demonstrated little familiarity with the OHS Act.

Demographic characteristics of the university worker participants

We have observed some association between demographic variables and knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (safety practices) of employees regarding health and safety programmes. Table 2 presents the association between the knowledge level score and demographics of the employees. In the first survey, there are associations between ‘the level of health and safety knowledge of the participants’ and their (a) ‘attendance at the safety presentations’ ( P < 0.05), b) ‘employment status’ i.e., faculty/staff/graduate student ( P < 0.05) and c) ‘age’ ( P < 0.05). For a detailed statistical analysis, please refer to supplementary file (S3) [Tables # S3.3.1 , S3.3.2 , S3.3.3 ]. In the second survey, there are associations between: ‘the level of health and safety knowledge’ and (a) ‘employment status’ ( P < 0.05), b) ‘age’ ( P < 0.05), and c) ‘duration of employment’ ( P < 0.05). For a detailed statistical analysis, please refer to supplementary file (S3) [Tables # S3.3.4 , S3.3.5 , S3.3.6 ].

Cross-tabulation between demographics and Knowledge level score

* Low score: 18-27; High score: 28-36; α significant for survey 1, β significant for survey 2

Table 3 presents the attitude level score and demographics of the participants. In the first survey, there are associations between ‘the level of attitude towards safety’ and: a) ‘employment status’ a) ( P < 0.05), and b) ‘age’ ( P < 0.05). In the second survey, no association was found between any of the demographic information and attitude towards safety. Please refer to Supplementary file S3 for a detailed statistical analysis [Tables # S3.4.1 , S3.4.2 ].

Cross-tabulation between demographics and attitude level and behaviour level scores

α significant for survey 1, β significant for survey 2

Table 4 also presents the association between ‘the behaviour (safety practice) level score’ and ‘demographic variables’ of the participants. In the first survey, there are associations between ‘behaviour level score’ and: a) ‘attendance at the safety presentation’ ( P < 0.05), and b) ‘employment status’ ( P < 0.05). In the second survey, there is an association between ‘attendance of the safety presentation’ and ‘behaviour level score’ related to health and safety ( P < 0.05). Please refer to Supplementary file S3 for a detailed statistical analysis [Tables # S3.5.1 , S3.5.2 , S3.5.3 ].

Laboratory safety related responses from different groups (in percentage)

In our two surveys, we observed that those who attended safety presentations had a better level of safety practices than those who did not attend the safety presentations. Overall, there is no significant difference in the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of the employees and graduate students between the two surveys. In Tables ​ Tables2 2 and ​ and3, 3 , the Chi square test results indicate that the levels of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of the employees and graduate students have not changed much over the period of six months.

The only change we observed is a decrease in the knowledge of graduate students and researchers regarding laboratory safety in the second survey [ Table 4 ]. In both surveys, the participants reported that some places on the campus are safe [ Table 4 ]. In the first survey, 70% of the faculty/staff reported that they felt safe in the campus labs, and 51% of graduate students/researchers reported that they felt safe in the campus labs. Compared to the first survey, the difference in knowledge regarding lab safety between faculty/staff/administrators and graduate students/researchers decreased in the second survey (Please refer to Table 5 for the results). It can, therefore, be stated that the graduate students/researchers need more awareness sessions and training on laboratory safety.

Group wise health and safety ratings of different on-campus areas (except laboratories) (in percentage)

For KII, five officials from the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) unit of MUN, two officials were from the Workplace Health and Safety Committee (WHSC) and one official was from Facilities Management (FM). During the interviews, the participants from the EHS unit highlighted several initiatives undertaken by their unit since the release of 2013 Gap Analysis (GA) results. Some important recent initiatives undertaken by EHS were: (a) Five to seven safety campus-wide presentations were organized, some of which were geared towards senior management and WHSC members; (b) MUN restructured 27 WHSCs on its campuses to provide adequate safety services and to meet the legislated requirements of CCOHS and the University OHS Act and Regulations. Each of the 27 WHSCs covered few buildings on campus; (c) In 2014, MUN implemented electronic safety reporting system (e-alert) (d) MUN Safe App was introduced in 2016; (e) Inspections of all university building offices and 350 laboratories are being conducted annually; (f) Orientation sessions for new undergraduate students each year are being organized, where general safety rules are described; (g) Established a chemical management system for labs; and (h) Created annual water sampling procedure for drinking water safety. The participants from WHSCs also mentioned some initiatives undertaken by the EHS unit such as (a) an increase in the participation of representatives from the EHS Unit to sit on the WHSC meetings and (b) more frequent laboratory inspections. The participant from FM mentioned some initiatives such as maintaining a good database to track the expiry date of the employee training; and more engagement in the weekly Toolbox Talks to discuss potential hazard assessment.

Most of the KII participants mentioned that the graduate students’ supervisors are responsible for providing information to the students on laboratory safety rules and whom to call first in the event of an incident/accident. They placed the responsibility for providing laboratory safety equipment on the Department Heads. The participants emphasized budget and manpower as the main bottlenecks for addressing workplace hazards in a timely manner. There were some suggestions from the KII participants to improve health and safety at MUN such as (i) making attendance of safety presentations mandatory and included as part of the new employee and student orientation packages, (ii) demonstrating the AED in every building, (iii) encouraging all university members to install the MUN Safe App on their phones, and (iv) constantly improving app on a regular basis.

D ISCUSSION

The survey results indicate that there are significant associations between: a) ‘attendance at the safety presentation’ and ‘participant's health and safety knowledge’, b) ‘level of attitude’ and ‘behaviour levels’, c) ‘employment status’ and ‘participant's knowledge level on health and safety’, d) ‘participant's age’ and 'safety knowledge level’, and e) ‘length of service’ and ‘participants’ level of knowledge on health and safety. In our two surveys, we observed that those who attended safety presentations had much better understanding and practices of health and safety than those who did not attend. It is clear from the results that there should be more emphasis on dissemination of the activities of the EHS unit to a larger number of MUN employees and students on a regular basis. The results of the cross-sectional surveys (our two surveys and the GA survey) show consistency in the three survey results. As presented in Table 2 , the respondents increased their awareness about the presence of the EHS unit at MUN and improved their (respondents) communication with the Health and Safety Committee over time. On the other hand, we identified some issues that need to be addressed such as less familiarity with MUN's working alone procedures, AED locations, and OHS Act. The dissemination of information on the OHS Act needs improvement, as this is the basis of all health and safety-related regulations, responsibilities, and rights.

Health and safety programmes should be evaluated periodically to ensure that best practices are being followed on a regular basis. Programme Evaluation always helps the institute to update guidelines as necessary, and to address areas of need or concern in the institute. In some of the previous studies, periodical evaluations were conducted to investigate any change or improvement in population health. Two cross-sectional surveys were conducted in1990 and in 1998 in Copenhagen, Denmark to investigate whether the prevalence of skin-prick-test (SPT)-positive allergic rhinitis had increased in an adult general population in Copenhagen, Denmark. A screening questionnaire on respiratory symptoms was distributed in random samples of 15–41-year-old people in 1990 and in 1998. Among the responders, random samples were invited to a health examination including SPT.[ 14 ] Two International Studies on Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) - questionnaires based surveys were carried out in 1994 and in 2001 among school children in Singapore to evaluate the hypothesis that the prevalence of asthma would further increase and approach to western figures over time.[ 15 ] A questionnaire-based survey was conducted in 1973 among 12 years old children in South Wales, Britain. In 1988, the survey was repeated in the same area among 12 years old children to again to observe whether the prevalence of asthma had increased.[ 16 ] Frequency of prescribed drugs use was assessed by a sample of elderly people 65 years and over in Nottingham in 1985 and 1989. The aim was to observe the change in numbers in the use of prescribed drugs.[ 17 ] Though in our study, we do not observe any significant difference overall in the knowledge, attitude, and behaviour of the employees between the two surveys, we observe a significant decrease in the knowledge regarding laboratory safety in the second survey. Our study is therefore, successful to investigate the change in perceptions of the employees regarding workplace health and safety over time.

This study used a mixed-methods approach as such a method allows for a more robust analysis.[ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ] We conducted online surveys as online survey can easily obtain large sample, it can control answer order, it required completion of answers, and online survey can ensure that respondents answer only the questions that pertain specifically to them.[ 18 ] Through the quantitative online survey analysis of MUN employees and graduate students, we learned of their perceptions regarding MUN's workplace health and safety programmes. These perceptions are a one-sided view of the survey participants, and quantitative survey analysis does not provide a detailed explanation of several issues. Through the KIIs, we collected further information related to health and safety programmes at MUN and clarified some of the issues raised by the participants in the surveys. Such as, the KII participants clarified that the graduate students’ supervisors are responsible for providing information to the students on laboratory safety rules and whom to call first in the event of an incident/accident; the Department Heads are responsibility for providing laboratory safety equipment; and budget and manpower are the two main bottlenecks for addressing workplace hazards in a timely manner. The KII participants also mentioned some recent beneficial initiatives such as, the arrangement of five to seven safety presentations campus-wide, restructuring of the WHS and EHS committees, the implementation of an electronic safety reporting system and the MUN Safe App, new orientation for undergraduate students where general safety rules are described, and development of the Health and Safety Management System. There had been a gap in understanding about health and safety matters between the employees and MUN health and safety officials. The qualitative analysis of the KII has filled this gap.

Our study is the first of this kind in the context of Health and Safety Program evaluation in Canadian university. Our study focused on the level of uptake of the information on health and safety disseminated by the university EHS unit through their safety presentations and workshops. We have also studied the effect of employee's and graduate student's knowledge about health and safety programmes at MUN on levels of their attitudes and behaviours. In addition, we have conducted KII interviews of the officials who are engaged in developing workplace health and safety programmes at MUN. As a result, improvements in the health and safety programmes have been planned by university officials. This is the practical implication of this study as the KII participants suggested some future procedures to improve health and safety at MUN such as making attending safety presentations mandatory for all employees and students; demonstrating the AED in every building; and encouraging all university residents to install the MUN Safe App on their phones.

There were some limitations of our study. The sample sizes of the surveys were small as participation was voluntary, and there was no incentive for participating in the surveys. The survey participants were not equally distributed across the disciplines, as the numbers of respondents from some faculties were much higher (Engineering faculty) than the number of respondents from other faculties (Arts and Education faculties). The survey data were anonymous, so our assertion on sustenance of the perceptions of the health and safety of respondents over the six-month period of time is not stronger.

In future surveys, undergraduate students should be included, as they are also exposed to similar risks as graduate students, and they outnumber graduate students. There is a sizable workforce involved in post-secondary university institutions in Canada, and this sector is growing. Varying ranges of working environments in the universities expose employees to multiple occupational risks. Safety training in a university is often not mandatory, and the survey analysis clearly indicates that there is need to increase the level of uptake on the information on health and safety programmes of university by employees and graduate students. Therefore, the universities should increase the number of safety training programmes and keep track of the employees that have not received training, particularly for those working in hazardous environments. Assured provision of financial resources is the key to maintaining a safe work environment and practices.

Key Messages

Universities should make safety training mandatory for all employees and graduate students. Therefore, there is a need to increase the number of training sessions to accommodate all eligible persons. Also, the universities should keep track of the employees and students that have not received training, particularly for those working in hazardous working conditions. The universities have to set aside financial resources for such regular trainings.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Associate Director of the EHS Unit of the Office of the Chief Risk Officer, Memorial University, Ms. Barbara Battcock, for her valuable suggestions throughout the survey. We would also like to thank all the anonymous participants who volunteered for the surveys and for the key informant interviews.

Supplementary File S1

Memorial University-Workplace Health and Safety Survey .

1. Did you attend the Safety-Presentation provided by Environmental Health and Safety Unit at Memorial University?

[ ] I don’t remember.

2. Employment Status

[ ]Faculty.

[ ]Researcher/Graduate student.

[ ]Administrator.

4. Which faculty/office do you belong to?

[ ] Medicine

[ ]Pharmacy

[ ]Engineering

[ ]Business

[ ]Education

[ ]Administrative office

[ ]Other (Please specify)

5. In which age group do you fall?

[ ] Less than 30

[ ] 60 or more

6. How long have you been on the Campus as an employee?

[ ] less than 5 years

[ ] 5-9 years.

[ ] 10 -14 years

[ ] 15-19 years

[ ] 20-24 years

[ ] 25 years or more

7. Are you aware of the presence of the Environmental Health and Safety Unit at Memorial University? (GA Survey, 2013)

8. Are you aware of Workplace Health and Safety Committees (WHSC- formerly known as Occupational Health and Safety Committees) of the building you work in? (GA Survey, 2013)

9. Does the WHSC in your building communicate with you? (GA Survey, 2013)

10. Do you read newsletters, brochures, bulletins, etc., relating to health and safety e-mailed by Environmental Health and Safety Unit? (GA Survey, 2013)

[ ] I don’t receive any of them.

11. Were you informed about the Occupational Health and Safety Act? (GA Survey, 2013)

12 Do you know where to report a safety concern, a safety hazard or accident? (GA Survey, 2013)

13 Do you know your role in the event of an emergency? (GA Survey, 2013)

14) Do you know the campus emergency telephone number? (GA Survey, 2013)

15. Do you know the shortest exit route from your work area (s)? (GA Survey, 2013)

16. Do you know whom you call first if you get injured at work? (GA Survey, 2013)

17. Are you aware that there are Automated External Defibrillators (AED) available in campus buildings? (GA Survey, 2013)

18. Do you know where the AEDs are located in the buildings you work? (GA Survey, 2013)

19. If AED training is made available through MUN, would you be interested in participating in the training? (GA Survey, 2013)

[ ] I am already trained in using AED.

20. In your experience, do you think that safety is a priority within your department/division/faculty/office? (GA Survey, 2013)

21. Do you understand your responsibilities for your and your colleagues’ health and safety? (GA Survey, 2013)

22. Are you familiar with MUN's health and safety policies? (GA Survey, 2013)

23. Please rate how safe you feel in the following areas on campus. (Montana Tech Safety Awareness Survey, 2011).

Please elaborate on any other particular areas you feel unsafe.

24. What precautions do you think you should take to increase your safety on campus? (Check all that apply). (Montana Tech Safety Awareness Survey, 2011).

• i) Carry a cellular phone.
• ii) Let others know where I will be.
• iii Take safety- training classes.
• iv Other, please specify.

25. Are you aware of Memorial's online reporting system for the health and safety issues/concerns? (GA Survey, 2013)

26. Do you report unsafe acts/conditions if you see them? (GA Survey, 2013)

’Toolbox Talks’ is the name of a meeting, which gives opportunity to Memorial University workers, supervisors and Department Heads a means of communicating health, safety and environmental initiatives as well as accident/incident ‘Lessons learned’ and expressing concerns, obtaining information, and resolving issues related to safety in the workplace.

27. Are toolbox talks/safety meetings relevant to your task? (GA Survey, 2013)

[ ] I do not know.

28. Have you participated in a toolbox talk/safety meeting? (GA Survey, 2013)

29. Are you aware of MUN's working alone procedures? (GA Survey, 2013)

30. Do you work after hours at least some times? (GA Survey, 2013)

31. Are you aware of MUN's safety escort service? (GA Survey, 2013)

32. Do you work at a lab or visit one frequently?

33. Please rate the following regarding laboratories on campus.

34. Is safety discussed in your workplace? (GA Survey, 2013)

35. Were you provided information/training on the safe use and maintenance of tools and equipment necessary for your job? (GA Survey, 2013)

36. Have you requested specific safety training appropriate to your position? (GA Survey, 2013)

37. Were you informed about the hazardous materials that are present in your workplace? (GA Survey, 2013)

For the purpose of this survey a hazard is defined as: ‘Any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone under certain conditions at work’.

38. How many hazards have you identified in your work place in the last one year.

0 1 2 3 4 or more.

In the above question if your answer is 1 or more than 1 go to question 34 or else go to question 35.

39. How many of them have been corrected in a timely manner?

40. Are Employees given feedback on accidents that occur in your workplace? (GA Survey, 2013)

41. Do you have any concerns regarding your safety and/or security in your faculty or department?

If you answered yes please specify.

42. Which of the following do you think MUN should provide to help increase the safety of the campus community? (Check all that apply). (Montana Tech Safety Awareness Survey, 2011)

• Improve safety escort service.
• More emergency call boxes.
• Additional lighting.
• More security guards.
• More safety presentations.
• Self-defence classes.
• Other, please specify

Supplementary File S2

Key Informant Interview Questions

Q1. After the 2013 Gap Analysis survey on safety culture, can you recall any additional initiatives that EHS Unit has initiated to create awareness on health and safety among MUN employees?

Q2. In the surveys less than 50% respondents (first survey 46.6%, second survey 40.8%) notified that they had participated in the safety presentation/workshop in 2015. Is this level of participation satisfactory? If not what additional steps can be taken to reach out to more people at MUN?

Q3. The survey results indicate that, the graduate students and researchers have low level of knowledge/awareness on occupational health and safety programmes compared to the faculty and staff. Knowing that the graduate students and researchers are more exposed group to different safety critical scenarios,

• i Does this appear as a concern?
• ii How do you think the safety awareness of graduate students and researchers can be improved?

Q4. In the surveys less than 65% of the participants know whom to call first if they get injured at work. Is this level of awareness acceptable? What are the current mechanisms to educate researchers/employees about this information? How do you think this information can be disseminated more effectively?

Q5. The respondents have suggested to improve communication and implementation of the policies and to provide more auditing of safety policies by EHS department to ensure compliance, do you have a similar observation? Is there any continuing effort to improve this concern?

Q6. The surveys indicate that, among the people who said Tool Box Talk is relevant to them, the level of participation in toolbox talk decreased over time. Does your observation support this finding? If so, what can be done to increase the participation?

Q7. The survey analysis indicates that, the graduate students and researchers need more training on eyewash station and safety shower, can you explain the current mechanisms for training graduate students on these basic safety practices? Do you see any way to improve the provision of training and increase the level of participation?

Q8. The respondents suggested to install more flammable gas detectors and improve the splash proof safety goggles. In your opinion are the units/labs equipped with adequate gas detectors and splash proof safety goggles?

Q9. The respondents commented on shortage of lab space and shortage of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).

• i) Is there any continuing effort to create more lab space?
• ii) Who is normally responsible to provide the PPE to the researchers/graduate students? How can one address the shortage of PPE in labs at MUN?

Q10. In the surveys over 50% of the respondents mentioned that, none of the hazards at their workplaces had been addressed in a timely manner.

• (i) What are the current practices for reporting, follow-up and correction of hazards?
• (ii) Do you see any bottleneck in the addressing the hazards in a timely fashion?

Q11. The survey results show that over 70% of the respondents want to participate in AED training. Is there any continuing effort to provide AED training to the employees and students at MUN?

Q12. The surveys indicate that a significant portion of the employees is not aware of MUN's working alone procedure though most of the employees are working after hours at the office. Is this a concern? If so what can be done to increase awareness on working alone procedure among the employees?

Q13. The participants have suggested repair of walkways and parking lots and removal of thick layer of ice from the parking lots to prevent slips and falls. Does this come under the purview of EHS Unit? If yes how can one address this issue?

Q14. Many respondents showed their concern about the design and usage of MUN Safe App. Is there a continuing effort to improve the App and make it user friendly?

Q15. In the surveys many of the participants have suggested the improvement of the on-campus safety escort service. How is the current safety escort service implemented and what additional steps can be taken to improve it?

Supplementary File S3

Table s3.3.1.

Chi-Square Tests for table 3

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 14.02, * p-value < 0.05 considered significant

Table S3.3.2

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 6.89

Table S3.3.3

Chi-Square Tests for Table 3

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 17.08

Table S3.3.4

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 6.67

Table S3.3.5

Chi Square Tests for Table 3

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 12.53

Table S3.3.6

a. 1cells (25.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 3.67

Table S3.4.1

Chi-Square Tests for table 4

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 8.71

Table S3.4.2

Chi-Square Tests for Table 4

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 21.79

Table S3.5.1

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 14.75

Table S3.5.2

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 6.94

Table S3.5.3

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 8.87

Supplementary File S4

Comparison of surveys

R EFERENCES

Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

Global Report

Climate change is already having serious impacts on the safety and health of workers in all regions of the world. Workers are among those most exposed to climate change hazards yet frequently have no choice but to continue working, even if conditions are dangerous. Global occupational safety and health (OSH) protections have struggled to keep up with the evolving risks from climate change, resulting in worker mortality and morbidity.

This report presents critical evidence related to the impacts of climate change on OSH, to bring attention to the global health threat workers are currently facing. The report addresses the following key issues:

• Excessive heat
• Ultraviolet (UV) radiation
• Extreme weather events
• Workplace air pollution
• Vector-borne diseases
• Agrochemicals

Additional details

• ISBN: 9789220405079 (web PDF)
• ISBN: 9789220405062 (print)

Related content

OSH and climate change

Climate change creates a ‘cocktail’ of serious health hazards for 70 per cent of the world’s workers

World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2024: The impacts of climate change on occupational safety and health

Overview of the key findings of the report

Report at a glance: Ensuring safety and health at work in a changing climate

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Occupational Safety and Health Administration

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• Solutions to Control Hazards

Case Studies

Here are some case studies submitted to OSHA, or that were based on information obtained by OSHA from primary or secondary sources, where employers have implemented safety and health processes or utilized best practices and have reported successful results.

• Ergonomics Case Study: The Dow Chemical Company's Use of the "Six Sigma" Methodology ( PDF ). OSHA, (May 15, 2004). Describes the Six Sigma methodology and how Dow used it to successfully address ergonomics hazards in the company's design and construction division.
• Ergonomic Improvements in Manufacturing . OSHA, (April 2005).
• Countryside Care Nursing Home . OSHA, (April 2005).
• Blue Cross Blue Shield Rhode Island . OSHA, (April 2005).

Search All OSHA Success Stories and Case Studies

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Resource Library

The AAEP develops numerous resources to assist veterinarians and the broader equine industry with issues affecting the horse and connection to those with common goals.

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Snake Bite Vaccination Guidelines

Tetanus Vaccination Guidelines

Tetanus toxoid is a core equine vaccine and should be included in equine immunization programs for every horse annually.

Venezuelan Equine Encephalomyelitis Vaccination Guidelines

Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA) Vaccination Guidelines

Equine Influenza Vaccination Guidelines

West Nile Virus Vaccination Guidelines

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