<p class="1"><span lang="EN-US">Academic laboratories considered as more hazardous than industry due to relaxed approach of academic management for chemical safety. This study designed to analyze the safe work practices and facilities by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Varimax rotation. A designed checklist of 26 safety items administered personally in 68 academic laboratories in a Saudi university. From EFA, five factors were extracted: “Availability of laboratory safety documents (5 items, α = 0.92)”, “Maintenance of fume hood (2 items, α = 0.75)”, “Proper chemical storage (3 items, α = 0.64)”, “Proper use of fume hood for chemical handling (4 items, α = 0.62)” and “Laboratory safety labelling (2 items, α = 0.73)”. The results revealed the 5 factors model that grouped 16 safety items that may be crucial for chemical storage, fume hood, laboratory safety plans and labels in the academic laboratories. The extracted factors derived from EFA are expected to help in the development of chemical safety management in the academic laboratories. </span></p>

The purpose of this paper is to study the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors on the safety leadership at various Saudi universities. A Likert Scale response type standardized questionnaire was administered among staff and students (n = 60) of 30 universities who attended a symposium regarding safety at universities, and a 100% response rate was observed. A two-way MANOVA analysis was performed to check the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors, and the results were discussed with different significance levels. The results showed the study population with an overall agreed (3.9/5) response about the role of academic safety leadership. Overall responses for safety caring (4.0/5) and safety controlling (4.0/5) followed the response of safety coaching (3.8/5). This study indicates that the perception of safety leadership varied with respect to the nature of the job, and workers with greater work experience have a traditional belief of utilizing personal experience for effective safety leadership rather than specialized measures. University staff with accident experience showed a poor response to safety leadership and safety initiatives such as formulation of the safety committee and availability of safety training. Identified deficiencies can be useful to raise positive safety leadership in the Saudi universities and can be useful to improve the relative poor response.

The use of chemicals in academic/research laboratories is obvious which need proper university's safety management. It is the prime responsibility of university top management to protect laboratory staff from chemical health risks during their work. This study elaborates a methodology for the implementation of a Chemical Health Risk Assessment (CHRA) program in a University's chemical laboratories. The objective of this CHRA program is to identify and evaluate the risks of chemical exposure among laboratory staff. The qualitative observation of CHRA program identified two categories of risk, one is a significant risk but already adequately controlled could increase in future, second is risk significant now, and not adequately controlled. Based on the conclusion of CHRA program proactive suggestions were made to reduce the risks of chemical exposure among laboratory staff. This study can be useful to implement CHRA program in chemical laboratories of a university to assess the risk of chemical exposure and required control measures for the protection of laboratory staff.

The safety performance of the industrial enterprises in Khartoum city was the best. The safety performance in the chemical sector was the worst with regard to FSI and DAFR. The age, sex, and educational level of injured workers greatly affect safety performance.