Prevention culture as culture: can we achieve it, and is it enough

Details

• Personal Author:
  Guerin, Rebecca J. ; Okun, Andrea H. ; Schulte, Paul A.
• Description:
  As the 2008 Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work states, "...[a] 'Prevention Culture' is one in which society as a whole promotes high levels of safety and health at work.... A national preventive safety and health culture acknowledges and supports the right to a safe and healthy work environment that is: respected at all levels; actively participated in by governments, employers, and workers; [and] defined in systems of responsibilities and duties. It is a culture where the principles of prevention are accorded the highest priority" (1). So what does "prevention culture as culture" mean? Culture is defined in many ways and generally refers to "that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, acts, laws, morals, customs, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society" (2). Anthropologist Clifford Geertz's definition of culture - one that is widely cited in organization studies (3) - argues for a complex and dynamic conception of culture that is "...essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law, but an interpretative one in search of meaning" (4). As Geertz's description implies, because of its meaning-centered and dynamic nature, culture is mutable, and humans can act collectively to change it to reflect shared norms and beliefs. As Geertz envisioned, the social web we weave can be expansive and simultaneously limiting, depending on the collective choices we make. The public health community can foster the expansion of a conception of culture that includes a focus on protecting and promoting the health of the whole person in all of his or her environments - from home, to work, to the community. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Education Mental Health Occupational Health Preventive Medicine Public Health Risk Assessment Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-prevention Disease-prevention Health-protection Humans Injury-prevention Job-analysis Mental-health Preventive-medicine Public-health Risk-analysis Sociological-factors Worker-health

  More +
• ISBN:
  9789522614285
• Publisher:
  Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  EID - Education and Information Division ; OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  21-29
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20044259
• Citation:
  From Risks to Vision Zero: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Culture of Prevention - Future Approaches, September 25 - 27, 2013, Helsinki, Finland. Aaltonen M, Äyräväinen A, Vainio H, Lehtinen A, eds. Helsinki, Finland: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, 2014 Jan; :21-29
• Contact Point Address:
  Paul A. Schulte, PhD, Director, Education and Information Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , 4676 Columbia Parkway, MS-C14, Cincinnati, OH 45226 USA
• Email:
  PSchulte@cdc.gov
• Editor(s):
  Aaltonen M; Äyräväinen A; Vainio H; Lehtinen A
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  From Risks to Vision Zero: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Culture of Prevention - Future Approaches
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f3f234bbe487cb0ad45e0bb001ab822413dacb72a5dcf19d8bb66ef7c8acef4f319c979d10a9d68dbf5ba0b3d029a3a4f6e4e7b04d27b8e527ad2e3077ec120b
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/200002/cdc_200002_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 636.62 KB ]