Safety culture and climate in construction: bridging the gap between research and practice

Details

• Personal Author:
  Gillen, Matthew ; Goldenhar, Linda M. ; Hecker S ; Schneider S
• Description:
  Researchers and practitioners have identified safety culture and safety climate as key to reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities on construction worksites. Many construction contractors are trying to improve these indicators as a way to move closer to a goal of achieving zero injury worksites. Unfortunately, neither the industry nor the scientific literature have reached a consensus on how to define these concepts, how they should be measured, or which interventions designed to improve them are likely to succeed. If we are to ever understand the degree to which safety culture and safety climate contribute to improving safety outcomes, we need to 1) agree on what safety culture and safety climate mean, 2) develop reliable and valid ways to measure them so we can identify and target sites needing improvement, and 3) design, implement, and evaluate interventions that, based on the research metrics, actually improve them. In 2008, the Construction Sector Council of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA), sponsored by NIOSH, developed a research agenda. One of the 15 strategic goals identified for research was "Construction Culture." It specified the need to better understand safety culture in construction and how it impacts construction safety and health. To help address these needs and move the NORA Construction Sector Council research agenda forward, CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) convened a 1½ day workshop June 11-12, 2013. The construction-focused workshop was part of a larger Safety Climate and Safety Culture workshop co-hosted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and CPWR. While there were shared plenary and closing sessions, there were two separate tracks, each attended by a different target audience. A literature review and fifteen interviews were conducted prior to the workshop, and meeting organizers used the results to inform the meeting structure and provide input for session planning. Short trigger talks followed by small structured group discussions were used to ensure the workshop would be an interactive experience for all attendees. Seventy-two invited construction stakeholders representing the following constituency groups participated in the construction track: contractors (25%), employer associations (12%), labor organizations (14%), researchers/academics (40%), consultants (6%), and insurance firms (4%). Participants were assigned to one of the six work groups to guarantee a balanced mix of invited constituent groups in each group. Trained group facilitators used a structured set of topics and questions as a way to maximize discussion and obtain report-out material from each session. The planning committee spent five months developing the facilitator handbook (available upon request) along with relevant and useful handout materials to use during the various workshop sessions. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Communications Media Construction Industry Education Mass Behavior Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Safety Safety Management Staff Development

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• Keywords:
  Accident-prevention Communication-systems Construction Construction-industry Construction-workers Group-dynamics Injury-prevention Occupational-hazards Occupational-safety-programs Safety-climate Safety-education Safety-programs Safety-research Training Work-practices Worker-health

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• Publisher:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; Maryland ; Oregon ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-56
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046385
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, 2014 Apr; :1-56
• Contact Point Address:
  Dr. Linda M. Goldenhar, CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, 8484 Georgia Avenue, Suite 1000, Silver Spring, MD 20910
• Email:
  lgoldenhar@cpwr.com
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Safety culture and climate in construction: bridging the gap between research and practice
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c714cde5852c8c47dab161d3b7201f58fc90846936ceb0f15592ec227c0a89a2c8fab4461dbc69cd9286a5777da1eef316834973d9c2b037276653577b3e20f2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/201459/cdc_201459_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 482.43 KB ]