The Role of Risk Avoidance and Locus of Control in Workers’ Near Miss Experiences: Implications for Improving Safety Management Systems

Details

• Personal Author:
  Haas, Emily J. ; Yorio, Patrick L.
• Description:
  The process industry has made major advancements and is a leader in near-miss safety management, with several validated models and databases to track close call reports. However, organizational efforts to develop safe work procedures and rules do not guarantee that employees will behaviorally comply with them. Assuming that at some point, every safety management system will need to be examined and realigned to help prevent incidents on the job, it is important to understand how personality traits can impact workers' risk-based decisions. Such work has been done in the mining industry due to its characteristically high risks and the results can be gleaned to help the process industry realign goals and values with their workforce. In the current study, researchers cross-sectionally surveyed 1,334 miners from 20 mine sites across the United States, varying in size and commodity. The survey sought to understand how mineworkers' risk avoidance could impact their near miss incidents on the job - a common precursor to lost-time incidents. Multiple regressions showed that as a miner's level of risk avoidance increased by 1 unit in the 6-point response scale, the probability of experiencing a near miss significantly decreased by 30% when adjusting for relevant control variables. Additionally, a significant interaction between risk avoidance and locus of control suggested that the effect of risk avoidance on near misses is enhanced as a miner's locus of control increases. A one-unit increase in locus of control appends the base effect of risk avoidance on near misses with an additional 8% decrease in the probability. Findings are discussed from a near-miss safety management system perspective in terms of methods to foster both risk avoidance and locus of control in an effort to reduce the probability of near misses and lost time at the organizational level within the process industry and other high-hazard industries. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Behavior Decision Making Hazardous Substances Mining Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Safety Management Surveys And Questionnaires

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• Keywords:
  Accident Potential Accident Prevention Author Keywords: Health And Safety Management System Compliance Control Systems Cross Sectional Studies Decision Making Hazard Controls Hazard Identification Health Protection Health Surveys Humans Injury Prevention Locus Of Control Lost Time Incident Lost Work Days Miners Near Miss Incident Personality Traits Poisson Regression Process Control Regression Analysis Risk Avoidance Risk Factors Risk Management Safety Culture Safety Monitoring Safety Practices Safety Programs Statistical Analysis Surveillance Work Analysis Work Operations

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• Series:
  Mining Publications
• ISSN:
  0950-4230
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PMRD - Pittsburgh Mining Research Division ; NPPTL - National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  91-99
• Volume:
  59
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20055306
• Citation:
  J Loss Prev Process Ind 2019 May; 59:91-99
• Contact Point Address:
  Emily J. Haas, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Pittsburgh Mining Research Division, 626 Cochrans Mill Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA
• Email:
  EJHaas@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2019
• NORA Priority Area:
  Mining
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2d04bff65b1d87a473c7fda05570686748936e57267a39a71c39ef509c3fd221e03b95e49c1dbcedec1557c6f03c0d2caf59da977763f42e2cd2dc051ebeb90c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/227840/cdc_227840_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 259.28 KB ]