The Safety Climate Assessment Tool (S-CAT): A Rubric-Based Approach to Measuring Construction Safety Climate

Details

• Personal Author:
  Betit, Eileen ; Byrd JL ; Goldenhar, Linda M. ; Probst TM
• Description:
  Introduction: This paper presents the development and validation of a new rubric-based Safety Climate Assessment Tool (S-CAT). The S-CAT gives companies the opportunity to use rubric descriptors, rather than traditional Likert scale responses, to self-assess their level of safety climate maturity and receive a composite score benchmarked against others in the S-CAT database. Method: The S-CAT is composed of 37 separate indicators of 8 safety climate factors identified by construction industry subject matter experts. The eight factors have between three and six indicators each with its own rubric-based response-scale. The scales comprise descriptors for five levels of safety climate maturity ranging from "inattentive" to "exemplary." Nine hundred and eighty-five respondents working in the construction industry completed the S-CAT via our online safety climate website. We used company recordable incident rates (RIR) to assess the S-CAT's criterion-related validity. Results: Cronbach alphas for each factor ranged from 0.77 to 0.90 and a confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized eight factor structure with a higher-order safety climate factor. Seven of the eight factor scores, as well as the overall S-CAT score, were significantly negatively correlated with RIR. Moreover, a relative weights analysis indicated that a weighted combination of the eight safety climate factors explained 27% of the variance in organizational RIR. Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that the S-CAT is a reliable tool allowing construction companies to self-assess their safety climate along eight different factors. Moreover, the S-CAT was significantly associated with organizational injury rates. Practical applications: We discuss how companies can use the rubric descriptors to strengthen their safety management systems and improve their safety climate maturity. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Safety Climate Construction Construction Industry Construction Workers Injuries Rubric Scale Safety Climate Safety Practices Scale Development And Validation
• ISSN:
  0022-4375
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 3 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  43-51
• Volume:
  69
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20057299
• Citation:
  J Safety Res 2019 Jun; 69:43-51
• Contact Point Address:
  Tahira M. Probst, Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, WA, United States of America
• Email:
  probst@wsu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2019
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Safety Research
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:95bc72ede3f43d8235b3475000abb6488969b2c925cb8d3f1ae896cc9a3184adc32df6e395727ef2b9b73b8df3647921faa5bea38ca674524f8a61a94d9350ce
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/214694/cdc_214694_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.05 MB ]