Occupational safety and health inspection scores predict rates of workers' lost-time injuries

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Abstract

This study examined statistical relationships between safety inspection scores and occupational injury rates among civilian employees in 11 types of United States Navy shore facilities ranging from shipyards to research and development centers. The study's results indicate that workplace inspection scores are significantly predictive of lost-time injury rates, even in the presence of statistical controls for differences in facility characteristics. Further, these results suggest that even a 1% improvement in these facilities' safety inspection scores would yield an expected 1% decrease in the rate of severe injuries. Although this is a very small decrease in the injury rate, the number of civilian workers at these Navy shore facilities is so large, and the average cost of such injuries is so great, that the reduction in total injury costs would be nearly $2 million per year. These data suggest that periodic, comprehensive safety inspections can be rewarded with lower rates of occupational lost-time injuries.

Introduction

One of the fundamental principles of personnel management is that monitoring and appraisal of performance are essential elements in ensuring that workers' activities are consistent with organizational goals. Most textbooks on management (Koontz and O'Donnell, 1972) personnel (Cascio, 1991) and industrial/organizational psychology (Muchinsky, 1993) assert that managers should explain to subordinates what is expected of them, work with them to set performance goals, provide guidance regarding methods by which the goals can be achieved, systematically monitor performance, and conduct periodic evaluations rewarding good performance, correcting errors, and punishing undesired behavior. The validity of these recommendations has been established in the course of extensive empirical research conducted by a wide variety of investigators in recent decades.

It seems logical that procedures found effective at the individual level would also be effective at the organizational level and would be just as appropriate for achieving safety goals as production goals. Thus, if they wish to gain compliance, units responsible for enforcing safety and health regulations should disseminate information about safety standards, provide guidance regarding the means by which the standards can be satisfied, and conduct regular inspections linked to enforcement actions. However, despite the apparent similarity between the appraisal of individual production performance and assessment of organizational safety performance, the value of workplace safety inspections remains a debated policy issue (Moore, 1993).

On the one hand, some studies (Mendeloff, 1976; New York Department of Labor, 1966; Wisconsin Department of Industry, 1971) have contended that safety inspections could prevent about one quarter of industrial accidents. Other studies, in contrast, have questioned the effectiveness of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspections in reducing injuries on the job (Di Pietro, 1976; Mendeloff, 1979; Smith, 1976; Viscusi, 1979). Viscusi's (1979) study is of interest because it used nationally aggregated data to assess the joint effects on injury rates of the probability of an inspection and likely penalty for noncompliance. His analysis, which found no significant effects for inspection, did detect a significant reduction over time in injury rates which was uncorrelated with the occurrence of in-plant inspections. Other studies have found some evidence of the effectiveness of safety inspections. Smith (1979)used a longitudinal design which controlled for the effects of the industry to which a plant belonged, the plant's injury rate in the previous year, the size of the plant (number of employees), and the increase in employment during the inspection year. He found evidence of a significant effect of inspections on injury rates during the first of two study years, and moreover, reported that the reduction in injury rates was largest for the smallest plants. In his explanation of the finding that inspections had a significant effect in only the first of the two years, he suggested that there was likely to have been a decrease in the level of hazard (due to OSHA's policy of targeting the most hazardous plants first) and a dilution in the effectiveness of inspections (due to an influx of new inspectors from the first year to the second).

Robertson and Keeve (1983)noted that any research on the effects of inspections in reducing occupational injuries should also control for the effects of other variables (such as increases in workers' compensation payment rates) which could produce increases in injury reports, and thus mask the effect of inspections in reducing actual injuries. These investigators examined two data sets, the first of which consisted of longitudinal data from three metalworking plants. By controlling for increases in workers' compensation payment rates, they found that OSHA inspections had an effect on objectively verifiable injuries (e.g. lacerations and fractures), but not on `subjective' injuries (such as back pain and strain). An examination of aggregated data (by state and industry) also showed a significant effect of OSHA inspections when workers' compensation payment rates were statistically controlled.

Although these studies seem to establish that inspections do reduce occupational injuries, they have not identified mediating mechanisms by which this effect occurs. One explanation (Smith, 1979) focuses on the technical expertise inspections provide to those lacking specialized safety knowledge, while another emphasizes the motivating effect of a threatened fine for noncompliance (Viscusi, 1979). These developmental and motivational functions of inspections are quite consistent with the multiple functions served by individual performance appraisals (Schneider and Schmitt, 1986). That is, inspections can explain to managers what is expected of them, set goals for their performance, provide guidance regarding the methods by which the goals can be achieved, systematically monitor performance, and provide periodic evaluations which reward good performance, correct errors, and punish noncompliance.

The studies reviewed here suggest that inspections can lead to reductions in injury rates even when a comprehensive occupational safety and health (OSH) program has been established and access has been provided to safety expertise. In addition, they imply that there could be a continuing effect of inspections, even though such an effect was not found by others (Smith, 1979). However, the results of these studies raise a number of additional questions. For instance, is there a quantitative effect of inspection score over and above the qualitative effect of simply having an inspection? That is, among facilities which have been inspected, do those receiving higher scores on their safety inspections experience fewer injuries? And, do various performance indicators assessed during those inspections differ in their ability to predict those facilities' injury rates?

These questions, together with the results of previous research, lead to the following hypotheses. First, facility characteristics presumed to indicate the hazardousness of worker activities are expected to be positively correlated with employee injury rates. Second, inspection scores are hypothesized to be inversely correlated with injury rates. Finally, the inverse relation between inspection scores and injury rates is expected to be maintained when statistically controlling for differences in facility characteristics.

Section snippets

Method

Data on United States Navy shore facilities were classified into one of 11 types: shipyards, weapons facilities, aircraft repair depots, public works centers, naval air stations, hospitals, research and development (R and D) centers, bases, support facilities, training facilities and miscellaneous (mostly administrative) facilities. These facilities are principally staffed by civilian employees who are exposed to the full range of occupational hazards addressed by OSHA training regulations (

Results

The OWCP data tapes yielded a total of 3 843 accepted lost-time injuries, with 481 of these being severe lost-time injuries. The total work force for these 85 facilities was 185 688. Table 1 shows descriptive data, by facility type, as well as the ANOVA results for the comparisons among the facility types. All dependent variables were entered into separate ANOVAs. Concerns about non-normal distributions of dependent variables measuring rates and proportions (cf. Winer, 1962) led me to perform

Discussion

The analyses presented here strongly confirm the first hypothesis, i.e. that facility characteristics would have statistically significant positive correlations with employee injury rates. Moreover, the analyses also provide some support for the second and third hypotheses. Specifically, severe lost-time injury rates were inversely related to one type of inspection score (work place inspections), and this inverse relation was maintained even when statistical controls were introduced to partial

Acknowledgements

This article describes work supported by the Chief of Naval Operations, Environmental Protection, Safety, and Occupational Health Division (N-45), and by the Navy Medical Research and Development Command under work unit number 63706N-M0096.004-6202, Department of the Navy. This work was conducted while the author was in residence at the Naval Health Research Center. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Navy,

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