The role of safety climate and exposure to environmental hazards on occupational illness

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between workplace hazards and safety climate and their effect on occupational illness using data from the 2007 Trends in Risk Level questionnaire. Study 1 outlines the history of research into the offshore oil industry in the North Sea, the PSA questionnaire, and presents a process for refining the safety climate measure in the PSA questionnaire. Study 2 took the safety climate scale, along with the exposure to environmental hazard scale, to predict occupational illness. I conducted exploratory factor analyses on the safety climate scale and occupational illness scale. I reported a five factor solution that accounted for 53.9% of the variance. The five factors were: Accident prevention, Threats to safety, Competence, Chemical Knowledge, and Training. Hierarchical regression analysis showed support for the hypothesis that both safety climate explains unique variance in occupational illness beyond what is explained by exposure to hazards.