Work safety climate and safety practices among immigrant Latino residential construction workers

Abstract

Background Latino residential construction workers experience high rates of occupational fatality and injury. Work safety climate is an especially important consideration for improving the safety of these immigrant workers. This analysis describes work safety climate among Latino residential construction workers, delineates differences in work safety climate by personal and employment characteristics, and determines associations of work safety climate with specific work safety behaviors. Methods Data are from a cross-sectional survey of 119 Latino residential framers, roofers, and general construction workers in western North Carolina; 90 of these participants also provided longitudinal daily diary data for up to 21 days using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Measures included the Perceived Safety Climate Scale, and daily reports of five individual and five collective safety practices. Results Work safety climate was mixed among workers, with roofers (19.9) having lower levels than framers (24.3) or general construction workers (24.3). Days reported for several individual (glove-related risks, not doing something known to be unsafe) and collective safety practices (attended daily safety meeting, not needing to use damaged equipment, not seeing coworker create an unsafe situation) were positively associated with work safety climate. Conclusions Work safety climate predicts subsequent safety behaviors among Latino residential construction workers, with differences by trade being particularly important. Interventions are needed to improve safety training for employers as well as workers. Further research should expand the number of workers and trades involved in analyses of work safety climate. Am. J. Ind. Med. 55:736-745, 2012.

Impact of Attitudinal Ambivalence on Safety Behaviour in Construction

“…To promote safe behaviour on construction sites, previous researchers measured safety attitude [24], analysed the relationship between safety attitude and safety performance [25], and discussed how safety interventions could improve safety attitude and performance [26]. Mohamed et al found that workers' attitudes towards safety responsibilities and their risk perceptions explained their intentional behaviour [27].…”

Results of a community-based survey of construction safety climate for Hispanic workers

“…Supervisors' potential to engage in retaliation in the workplace and to affect workers' job opportunities is a concern among residential construction workers. 39 To estimate overall safety climate perception, a safety climate score ranging from 0 to 100% was calculated for each respondent based on their answers to the survey questions. The safety climate score was calculated as the proportion of answers that suggested a positive safety climate over the total number of responses (see Appendix 1 for questions and coding).…”

“…Our findings are in line with previous work showing Hispanic construction workers to be at risk of experiencing inadequate safety training. 2,39,[68][69][70] The general perception among survey respondents was that there is a need for increased fall prevention equipment, safety training, and clear safety roles and responsibility definition, and that management commitment to safety is undermined by a fear of retaliation and prioritizing productivity over safety. These factors point to a poor overall construction safety climate experienced by these workers and strong directions for improvement.…”

“…Previous research with Hispanic workers reported associations between safety climate and individual characteristics such as age, years in the US, years of working experience, and accident exposure. 31,39,40 Thus, age, experience in the construction industry, and length of residency were included in the survey and subsequently in the analysis to determine whether safety climate varied significantly according to participant characteristics. Additionally, given that a lack of English language skills has been identified as a risk factor for workplace injury, we explored how safety climate perception varied by respondents' English language ability.…”

Safety Climates in Construction Industry: Understanding the Role of Construction Sites and Workgroups

“…The results showed that safety was perceived as a joint responsibility of workers and management. Since then, many studies were conducted and revealed a significant positive association between safety climate and various aspects of occupational health and safety performance in the construction industry [5,[21][22][23] and subsequent safety behaviors among Latino residential construction workers, with differences by trade being particularly important [24]. Teo & Feng [25], in their study about safety culture in construction sites, found that safety climate has an impact on the three dimensions of safety culture, psychological, situational/environmental and behavioral dimensions.…”