Shaping Frontline Practices: A Scoping Review of Human Factors Implicated in Electrical Safety Incidents

Abstract

Injuries sustained while performing electrical work are a significant threat to the health and safety of workers and occur frequently. In some jurisdictions, non-fatal serious incidents have increased in recent years. Although significant work has been carried out on electrical safety from a human factor perspective, reviews of this literature are sparse. Thus, the purpose of this review is to collate and summarize human factors implicated in electrical safety events. Articles were collected from three databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar), using the search terms: safety, electri*, human factors, and arc flash. Titles and abstracts were screened, full-text reviews were conducted, and 18 articles were included in the final review. Quality checks were undertaken using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and the Critical Appraisal Skills Program. Environmental, individual, team, organizational, and macro factors were identified in the literature as factors which shape frontline electrical worker behavior, highlighting the complexity of injury prevention. The key contributions of this paper include: (1) a holistic and integrated summary of human factors implicated in electrical safety events, (2) the application of an established theoretical model to explain dynamic forces implicated in electrical safety incidents, and (3) several practical implications and recommendations to improve electrical safety. It is recommended that this framework is used to develop and test future interventions at the individual, team, organizational, and regulator level to mitigate risk and create meaningful and sustainable change in the electrical safety space.

Adolescence is an opportunity for farm injury prevention: A call for better age-based data disaggregation

“…Coaching is one approach that has been proposed to help with both improving safety practices, but also business practices more widely ( 31 ). Linking this to educational opportunities and a greater understanding of adolescent human factors would then help to nudge the culture toward being safer while also being productive ( 32 , 33 ). School curriculum is one of the best avenues for providing training to adolescents ( 34 ).…”

Research on Electricity Operation Behaviour Recognition Strategy Combined with Intelligent Image Recognition and Its Key Technology

“…The state of power equipment affects the stability of the entire power grid system operation. Power operation construction is often in a complex environment of high altitude, near electricity, charged electricity, etc., which puts forward high requirements for the professional skills and professionalism of the site operators [1][2][3]. Power operation safety is the foundation of power production.…”