Safety: Findings from a National Workplace Health & Safety - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Factors Associated with Leading Indicators of Work Health & Safety: Findings from a National Workplace Health & Safety Survey

Presenter: Dr Miriam H. Marembo

13th Australian Injury Prevention & Safety Promotion Conference 13-15 November 2017

Background

• Economic and social costs of work-related injury and illness account

for about 4.1% of Australia’s GDP [Safe Work Australia, 2015c].

• Workplaces in Australia are becoming safer – Evidenced by a steady

reduction in lagging indicators

– Lagging indicators: Measures of harm that has already occurred e.g. incidence of workplace injuries [Government of Alberta, 2015].

• There is a need to continue promoting better preventative WHS

practices through using leading indicators.

– Leading indicators: aspects of workplace activities that can be used to improve OHS

• utcomes prior to an unwanted outcome occurring [Government of Alberta, 2015].

Objectives

• Compare the distributions for each leading indicator by demographic,

workplace and occupation characteristics.

• To assess the degree of overlap and complementarity between three

work health and safety (WHS) leading indicator measures.

– Assessing the degree of overlap or complementarity between leading indicators will help determine whether they all measure similar or unique aspects of prevention and action control.

Data

• Source: National Workplace Health and Safety Survey.
• Project was led by Monash University, with input from expert researchers from the

University of Melbourne, the Institute of Work & Health and Deakin University.

• The survey was carried out via telephone and internet in June 2016 by Ipsos.
• 1,130 workers in Australia, aged 18 years and above, who were employed for at

least 1 hour of paid work per week completed a 20 minute questionnaire.

• The questionnaire collected information on:

– Worker and workplace characteristics, – Three leading indicators of work health and safety,

• The Psychosocial Job Quality (PJQ) scale
• The Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) vulnerability scale
• The Organisational Performance Metric-Monash University (OPM-MU),

– Lagging indicators of work health and safety.

• National labour force data [ABS 2010;2015a;2015b; 2016].

Leading indicators of WHS

Indicator Focus Specific measure Risk/ vulnerability criteria Psychosocial Job Quality (PJQ) measure [Butterworth et al., 2011]

• Job quality
• Job demands & complexity
• Job control
• Job security
• Effort reward fairness
• Overall PJQ
• Score = ∑all responses for

statements corresponding to the indicator

• Cut-off: scores in quartiles

corresponding to the greatest difficulty. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) vulnerability scale [Lay et al., 2016]

• Exposure to OHS hazards at

work

• 3 dimensions of worker

protections

• Exposure to hazards
• Inadequate policies & procedures
• Inadequate awareness
• Inadequate empowerment
• Overall vulnerability
• Exposure to ≥ 2 hazards on

a weekly/ daily basis or exposure at any level to 4 specific hazards.

• Worker protections

inadequate if they disagreed

• r strongly disagreed with ≥

1 of the statements for each measure. Organisational Performance Metric-Monash University (OPM-MU) [Shea et al., 2016]

• The presence of OHS

leading indicators in the respondent’s workplace

• OPM-MU score
• Score = ∑all responses for 8

statements

• Cut-off: scores in the 1st

quartile corresponding to low OPM-MU.

Sample characteristics

20 40 60 80 100 Male Female < 35 years 35-44 years 45-54 years ≥ 55 years Australia Outside Australia English Not English Full time Part time 1-4 5-20 21-99 100-399 ≥400 <1 year ≥ 1 year White collar Blue collar Other Sex Age Birth location Language Employment type # of employees Job tenure Occupation Percentage

• Total responses: 1,130
• Compared to the ABS figures, our sample had fewer males & more females; fewer younger (≤44 years) & more older

workers; fewer full-time & more part-time workers; more workers in white collar & fewer workers in blue collar

• ccupations.

Leading indicators distribution

• Significantly higher prevalence rates of:
• OHS vulnerability among younger (<35 years) workers compared to older workers,
• Low OPM-MU scores & OHS vulnerability among workers born in Australia compared to those born elsewhere.

10 20 30 40 50 Male Female < 35 years 35-44 years 45-54 years ≥ 55 years Australia Other English Other Sex Age Birth location Language

Percentage Poor PJQ OPM-MU OHS vulnerability

Leading indicators distribution cont..

• Significantly higher prevalence rates of:
• OHS vulnerability among part-time compared to full-time workers,
• OHS vulnerability among workers who have been employed in their current job for <1 year compared to those who have been in their

current job for longer,

• OHS vulnerability among blue collar workers compared to workers in other occupations.

20 40 60 Full time Part time 1-4 5-20 21-99 100-399 ≥400 <1 year ≥ 1 year White collar Blue collar Other Employment type # of employees Job tenure Occupation

Percentage

Poor PJQ OPM-MU OHS vulnerability

Overlap between leading indicators

OHS vulnerable 114 [10.2%]

Low OPM-MU 72 [6.5%] Low job quality 170 [15.3%] 75

[6.7%]

126

[11.3%]

71

[6.4%]

41

[3.7%]

444 [39.9%]

• Total responses: 1,113
• 32.0% met the criteria of being at risk
• n one of the 3 measures.
• 16.8% were at risk on two leading

indicators.

• 11.3% were at risk on all three leading

indicators.

• There is some overlap in the

constructs being measured by the 3 leading indicators.

• Each indicator also captures

something unique corresponding to the type of prevention & control action being measured.

Summary

• Distributions for each leading indicator by demographic, workplace and occupation

characteristics.

– Distribution varied by age, birth location, employment type, job tenure & occupation. – Higher prevalence of OHS vulnerability among younger workers (<35 years), workers born in Australia, part-time workers, workers who have been employed in their current job for < 1 year & blue collar workers. – Higher prevalence of low OPM-MU scores among workers born in Australia.

• Degree of overlap & complementarity between three WHS leading indicator

measures.

– Approximately a third of the respondents were at risk on one of the 3 measures. – 16.8% were at risk on two and 11.3% were at risk on three leading indicators. – There is an overlap in some constructs being measured by the 3 measures , but each measure also captures something unique corresponding to the type of prevention & control being measured.

References

• Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2010). Australian Labour Market Statistics, Oct 2010, cat. no. 6105.0.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2015a). Education and Work, Australia, May 2015. Table 13 - Highest level of eduactional

attainment: Level-By state or territory of usual residence and sex, persons aged 15-74 years, cat. no. 6227.0.

• Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2015b). Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly, May 2015, cat. no. 6291.0.55.003.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly, Aug 2016, cat. no. 6291.0.55.003
• Butterworth, P., Leach, L. S., Strazdins, L., Olesen, S. C., Rodgers, B., & Broom, D. H. (2011). The psychosocial quality of

work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health: results from a longitudinal national household panel

• survey. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 68(11), 806-812. doi: 10.1136/oem.2010.059030
• Government of Alberta, (2015). Leading indicators for workplace health and safety: A user guide., 22/03/2017, from

http://work.alberta.ca/documents/ohs-best-practices-BP019.pdf

• Lay, A. M., Saunders, R., Lifshen, M., Breslin, C., LaMontagne, A., Tompa, E., & Smith, P. (2016). Individual, occupational,

and workplace correlates of occupational health and safety vulnerability in a sample of Canadian workers. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 59(2), 119-128. doi: 10.1002/ajim.22535

• Safe Work Australia (2015c). The Cost of Work-Related Injury and Illness for Australian Employers, Workers and the

Community: 2012-13. Canberra.

• Shea, T., De Cieri, H., Donohue, R., Cooper, B., & Sheehan, C. (2016). Leading indicators of occupational health and

safety: An employee and workplace level validation study. Safety Science, 85, 293-304. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2016.01.015.

Acknowledgements

• Co-authors: Dr Behrooz Hassani-Mahmooei, Ms Clare Scollay, Prof.

Helen De Cieri, Prof. Tony La Montagne, Dr Jason Thompson, Associate

• Prof. Peter Smith & Prof. Alex Collie.
• This project was partly funded by enforceable undertakings received via

WorkSafe Victoria, through the Institute for Safety Compensation & Recovery Research.

• The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of staff of the

WorkSafe Victoria & ISCRR for their review of the survey content & support for the project.

• The authors also thank the survey participants.

Contact: Dr Miriam H. Marembo Email: miriam.marembo@monash.edu Phone: +61 9903 8634 www.iscrr.com.au

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Thank you