Health And Safety Flashcards
1
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Health and safety 1
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Accidents at work: errors and accidents in operator-machine system (Nagel, 1988)
- Technology has led to the development of machinery that largely replaces many of the tasks previously done by human workers.
> This leaves the human as the ‘operator’ of the machine and the interaction between the machine and its operator is sometimes extremely complex and the consequences of ‘human error’ can be catastrophic. - Famous example of human error with near catastrophic consequences:
> Occurred at the Three Mile Island power plant in the USA in 1979.
> An employee shut down an alternate feedwater pipe and went off duty without turning this back on again.
> The reactor started to overheat and warning sirens began to sound but no one at the power plant knew what the problem was.
> It took 2 hours and 18 minutes to find the fault.
> It is not appropriate to simply blame the operator for his error. Nothing in the system had been designed to tell anyone that the pipe had been turned off and when a relief valve also failed to open, no warning system was in place.
> Later examination of the processes required to identify the fault revealed that the operators looking for the fault had to scan over 1600 gauges.
> For some reason, colours had been used differently in different systems and in some places a coulour represented safety whereas in another part of the system it represented danger.
> It was clear that while there had been human errors, there were also significant failings in the design of the systems as well as the safety procedures. - Since then, we have seen the development of ‘human factors’ experts, who ensure that the design of machines reflects our knowledge and understanding not only of human cognition, but of the limitations of human cognition.
> This might involve making sure that display systems are clear and easy to interpret, that operators are not expected to maintain vigilance for too long without a break (such as the tasks performed by air traffic controllers) and that there are tried and tested emergency procedures.
2
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Health and safety 2
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Reducing accidents at work (Fox et al., 1987)
- Investigated the use of a token economy to reward workers for not having accidents or injuries for a specified amount of time.
A. Background
> Study was conducted at two open pit mines and their associated product processing plants. Both mines were in the USA.
> Prior to the study, the number of days lost from work due to injuries on the job in one of the mines was over eight times the natural average for all mines and three times the national average at the other mine.
> In the five years preceding the study, two people had been killed and a third person had suffered a permanent disability.
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B. Conditions of both mines
> The two settings were similar in many ways.
> They used the same mining procedures and were of similar sizes.
> Injuries had occurred in all areas of both mines but were particularly associated with the use and maintenance of heavy equipment.
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C. Participants
> The employees at the two mines, including office and clerical workers, engineers, managers, custodial, maintenance and production workers.
> The number of employees in the first mine was 197 when data collection began in 1970, rose to a high of 606 by 1979 and then decreased to 214 by 1983 due to the declining value of the uranium ore mine there.
> The second mine employed 450 staff in 1970 which had increased to 501 in 1983 and remained relatively stable from there.
> Workers were divided into four groups based on the numbers of working days lost due to injury:
» Group 1: Workers in the least hazardous jobs, mainly office workers.
» Group 2: Made up of foremen, shift supervisors, technicians, engineers and surveyors.
» Group 3: Mechanics, labourers, maintenance workers and operators of bulldozers, front and loaders, shovel, dragline and truck operators.
» Group 4: Workers in the most hazardous jobs, mainly electricians, the scraper operators and the fuel and lube workers.
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D. Token economy system
> Began in 1972 in the first mine and in 1975 in the second.
> The amount of trading stamps varied by the risk factors of each group, for example, in the first mine,
» Group 1: received 300 stamps
» Group 2: received 400 stamps
» Group 3: received 500 stamps
» Group 4: received 700 stamps
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E. How to earn the stamps?
> Workers were given a specified number of ‘trading stamps’ with their pay envelope if they had not suffered a lost time injury or injury hat required a doctor’s attention during the month.
> In addition to these ‘rewards’, all workers managed by a common supervisor were given further stamps if the whole group of workers under that supervisor had avoided lost time or medically treated injuries.
> Further still, any safety suggestions that were subsequently adopted by the miner, any acts that prevented injury to others or damage to property could be rewarded with amounts ranging from 500 to 25000 stamps.
> Six weeks before this scheme was started, workers were given information about how this would work.
> One month before the start of the scheme, any worker who had not had an equipment-damaging accident or a lost time injury was given 1000 stamps.
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F. No stamps
> A worker who missed one or two days of work due to injury would receive no stamps for one month.
> If three or four days of work were lost they would receive no stamps for two months.
> If five or six days were lost there would be no reward for three months.
> Increasing like this up to a maximum of six months with no reward if more than ten days were lost.
> No one in the group would receive any of the group award if any time had been lost and anyone responsible for an accident that damaged equipment would lose their individual stamp reward for one month for every $2000 of damage up to a maximum of 12 months.
> All members of that worker’s group would lose their group award for as many months as the individual lost his individual awards.
> Anyone failing to report an accident or injury would lose all of their individual awards for one month and their group would lose their group award for the same length of time.
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G. Uses of stamps
> Stamps could be ‘spent’ at local stores and could be exchanged for anything from a huge range of merchandise.
> In 1972, 3000 stamps would buy a spice rack, 7600 would buy a comforter for a full-size bed and 20400 stamps would buy a gas-fired barbecue.
> No restrictions were placed on how the stamps could be spent and the authors report that casual conversations around the mines revealed a range of products being purchased including microwave ovens, cuckoo clocks and shotguns!
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H. Data
> The miners had to keep careful safety data including the number of accidents and total numbers of days lost were recorded.
> Direct costs of these injuries and accidents were recorded under the headings of compensation insurance, medical care and repairing damaged equipment.
> The mines also kept data on the cost of the trading stamps.
» This allowed a benefit-to-cost ratio to be calculated to see if the dollars saved as a result of operating the token economy exceeded the cost of the token economy.
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I. Results
> There were significant decreases in the number of days lost in both mines in the first years that the token economy was operating.
> Days lost from work decreased, accidents and injuries decreased and no deaths or permanent disabilities occurred at either mine during the time that the token economy was in operation.
» Towards the end of the scheme, the number of days lost was around a quarter of the national average in the first mine, and one-twelfth the national average in the second mine.
> Costs of accidents and injuries in the first mine declined from a baseline average of $294000 to an average of $29000 for the years that the token economy was in effect.
> A similar decline was seen in the second mine, from a baseline average of $367696 to an average of $38972.
» Both declines were approximately 90%.
> The costs of the token economy scheme in the first mine never rose above $13850 and the costs in the second mine was $21940 in the first year but between 11000 and 13000 in subsequent years.
» This would suggest that the use of a token economy apparently benefited all parties.
> In addition to the much lowered risk of accident, workers also benefited from the goods they were able to buy with their trading stamps.
» Although no direct measure of this was taken, anecdotal evidence suggests that these stamps were greatly appreciated by all workers even though they were sceptical to begin with.
» In fact, one of the unions even requested that the programme be written into contracts.
» When stamps were left out of a small number of workers’ pay envelopes, the spouse of one called the mine to complain and the spouse of another drove 50 miles to collect them.
3
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Health and safety 3
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Safety promotion campaigns (Cowpe, 1989)
- A report of a study conducted by Cowpe when chip-pan fires were a major cause of domestic fires in the UK.
> Approximately one-third of all domestic fires were caused by chip-pans.
> In 1981, there were 21 deaths and 1372 injuries caused by 15000 chip-pan fires in the UK.
> Not only this but chip-pan fires were a major cost to the taxpayer in terms of providing emergency fire crews and police, and the associated costs to the National Health Service. - Cowpe considered 2 strategies for his advertising campaign:
A. Prevention strategy
> The advert would tell people how to avoid a chip-pan fire starting (for example, don’t overfill the pan with oil, don’t leave the pan unattended).
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B. Containment strategy
> People would be educated about the correct and the incorrect procedures to follow should a chip-pan catch fire. - Reasons rejecting prevention strategy:
> The research team felt that the causes of fires such as leaving the pan unattended were often simply accidents or the results of misjudgements, and telling people not to do this would not be successful.
> They also felt that, as most people tend to think, ‘accidents only happen to other people’.
> They would not perceive a prevention-focussed advert to be aimed at them and would ignore it. - They left with containment strategy; educating people about the correct procedures to follow in the event of a chip-pan fire.
> However, they quickly realised that an advert that showed someone actually tackling a fire would raise concerns in the viewer about their own abilities to do this and this would make them more receptive to messages about prevention.
> Cowpe concludes that this is a more appropriate tone to set.
» Rather than saying ‘Don’t do this’ which s likely to be ignored, they could say ‘Here’s what to do if you’re unlucky enough to have a chip-pan fire; putting it out isn’t easy, so why not remember why it happens in the first place.’ - Aim of the study
> To test the effectiveness of an advertising campaign warning people about chip-pan fires. - Research method
> Quasi-experiment
> Two 60-second advertisements were produced, both of which showed the initial cause of the fire (overfilling in one and inattendance in the other) and then the actions required to put this out.
> The advertisements were shown on television in ten UK regional television areas between 1976 and 1984. - Effectiveness
> Measured through the use of fire brigade statistics.
> Cowpe reports an overall 12% drop in fires (with drops between 7% and 25% in the different television areas in which the advert was shown).
> Also reports that high levels of awareness and recall of the adverts existed; not only during the times that they were shown but for a considerable time afterwards. - Conclusions
> The advertising proved effective as shown by the reduction in chip-pan fires.
> However, what is not known is the extent to which the ‘prevention’ part of the advert was successful and fewer fires broke out, and the extent to which the ‘containment’ part of the advert was successful and people were able to deal appropriately with the fire and had no need to call the fire brigade.
> Cowpe suggests that the advert increased both knowledge and confidence of containment procedures but that it was the combined effect of the two strategies that created the success of the advertisement in reducing fires, saving money, and much more importantly, saving lives.
4
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Evaluation
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- Fox et al.
> Demonstrates the effectiveness of the application of psychological principles to the workplace.
> The application of a token economy is a simple behaviourist technique which offers consistent and predictable rewards to desired behaviours.
» The usefulness of the token economy in this instance is obvious.
» The number of accidents was reduced significantly and worker safety was increased.
> Some critics of the behaviourist approach argue that such techniques are over-controlling and may be unethical.
» This is a judgement that you can make but in this instance, the use of rewards proved highly effective and was not used instead of safety training but in addition to the safety training.
» Many organisations offer similar schemes where workers are rewarded in this way.
> This study shows that the way the working environment (situation) is constructed can have significant effects on the way that individuals behave.
» All the workers had been trained in safety procedures and you would think, would be motivated to keep themselves out of danger, but the addition of small rewards had a powerful effect. - Cowpe
> Measures the effectiveness of a safety campaign designed to reduce chip-pan fires.
> It used an experimental approach in that the researchers were able to compare the incidence after the campaign although it would be very difficult to control extraneous variables in this study.
> However, this study is high in ecological validity as the participants were memebrs of the generalpublic who watched television adverts in their own homes.
> Unfortunately, it would not be possible to know who had watched this advert and whether it did specifically prevent a fire, and there is some evidence to suggest that the over-use of media campaigns reduces effect and awareness as people become desensitised to the message.
