U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

Uncovering Safety Silence



Details

  • Personal Author:
  • Description:
    Objective: The objective of this exploratory study was to examine the construct of safety silence (SS), which is an employee's act of not addressing the occurrence of an unsafe event that he/she has witnessed in the workplace. SS can occur in relation to unsafe behaviors (e.g. safety violations & errors) or safety outcomes (e.g. accidents & injuries). SS can pose as a barrier to increase or maintain workplace safety by not giving employees and management the opportunity to take corrective and preventative measures against unsafe events. Methods: Twenty six individuals employed in organizations required to follow OSHA standards participated in this study. Sixteen individuals participated in focus groups and ten were individually interviewed. Participants were asked a list of general discussion questions and were also asked to provide two or more critical incidents in which they chose not to speak up about unsafe events that they have witnessed. Results: Findings suggest that SS does exist and the main safety issues that employees choose to stay silent about are safety violations, followed by safety hazards, injuries, and accidents. Several motives were also found behind SS behaviors. Justifiable violations, which are violations that are rationalized by coworkers witnessing the event, were found to be the main reason for why employees decided to engage in SS. Conclusion: By exploring the construct of SS further, tools to measure, identify, and reduce SS can eventually be developed. However, there is much more to be researched in this area before such objectives can be met. Nonetheless, this study makes a significant contribution to the safety literature by uncovering the construct of SS and taking positive steps towards determining why it exists. [Description provided by NIOSH]
  • Subjects:
  • Keywords:
  • Publisher:
    University of South Florida (USF)
  • Document Type:
    Text
  • Funding:
    Grant
  • Genre:
    Abstract or Summary
  • Place as Subject:
  • CIO:
    National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
  • Topic:
    Workplace Safety & Health
  • Location:
    North America
  • Pages in Document:
    13
  • NIOSHTIC Number:
    nn:20064195
  • Citation:
    Sunshine ERC Research Poster Session/USF Health Research Day, February 20-22, 2014, Tampa, Florida. Tampa, FL: University of South Florida (USF), 2014 Feb; :13
  • Contact Point Address:
    Archana Manapragada, Florida International University Department of Psychology
  • Federal Fiscal Year:
    2014
  • Performing Organization:
    Sunshine Education and Research Center, University of South Florida
  • Peer Reviewed:
    False
  • Start Date:
    20050701
  • Source Full Name:
    Sunshine ERC Research Poster Session/USF Health Research Day, February 20-22, 2014, Tampa, Florida
  • End Date:
    20290630
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:bc602f7522dc2fbd0f2b8e44083c0579a83db1e18fa553d41e19d1db86a1b92bb4154273eea8a43dda8dfea02ff1e6d45c4dfa7d17cae19de4dd7088e747de4e
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 181.32 KB ]
PREVIOUS
ON THIS PAGE
Details
CDC STACKS serves as an archival repository of CDC-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other public health information authored or co-authored by CDC or funded partners.

As a repository, CDC STACKS retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
BACK TO TOP