Effects of the work environment and safety activities on occupational accidents in eight wood‐processing companies

Abstract

The study was conducted at 16 wood-processing companies in southern Finland. The companies involved were selected according to the following criteria: (a) 8 companies were to have an accident rate that was clearly below the average rate for the wood-processing industry in the period [1985][1986][1987][1988][1989], and 8 companies a rate clearly higher than the average; and (b) the companies were to form pairs engaged in the same type of activity and exhibiting different rates.Companies were divided into 2 groups. Two sawmills, 1 parquet, and 1 plywood factory with a low accident rate and 4 similar factories with a high rate were selected as "experiment companies" and received advice aimed at improving their work environment and safety activities. Eight similar companies were selected as a control group and received no advice. This study attempted to ascertain the effects of such advice on the work environment, safety activities, and occupational accidents. In addition, differences in the safety of the work environment, in safety activities, and in occupational accidents were studied in companies with a low accident rate as compared with the situation in companies with a high rate.Work environment and safety activities showed a statistically significant correlation with accident rate. The better the situation, the lower the accident rate. In the companies with a low accident rate, the work environment and safety activities were also better than in the companies with a high rate.In the period 1989-1994, the drop in the accident rate at the experiment companies was greater-to a statistically significant extent-than it was in the control group or in the wood-processing industry as a whole. In cases where advice was given to the experiment companies with the aim of preventing particular occupational accidents, the rate of such accidents declined; there was no such trend in the control companies. By contrast, trends for other types of accidents were similar in the experiment and control companies. Changes in the accident rates of the experiment or control companies could not be explained by economic cycles or by changes either in the employees' work experience or in the duration of absences.It is highly probable that the positive trend with regard to occupational accidents in the experiment companies was related to improvement in the work environment and safety activities and that this in turn was a result of the advice given to these companies in 1990.

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The Influence of Satisfaction With the Physical Work Environment on Safe Work Behaviour and Cognitive Failure

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