Citation

Basha SA, Maiti J. Safety Sci. 2013; 51(1): 374-381.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssci.2012.08.005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examines the associations amongst job-risk perception, work injuries and demographic variables like age, experience, designation and location of work in an integrated steel plant in India. The job-risk perception was measured using 'job safety' questionnaire and actual safety performance was measured using self reported injury experiences. Data were collected through questionnaire survey and from company logbooks. The sample consists of 135 employees selected based on stratified sampling from different sections of a steel melting shop (SMS) of the steel plant. The data were then subjected to sequential analyses: (i) factor analysis to identify the latent dimensions of job-risk perception, (ii) multinomial logistic regression to assess the relationship between job-risk perception factors, demographic variables and work injuries, (iii) multivariate linear regression to assess the relationship between demographic variables and job-risk perception factors, and (iv) analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the significant variables as obtained earlier. The results reveal that four distinct factors namely general-risk, deadly-risk, health-risk and safety-perception, together explain 82.35% of the total variance. Work injury is associated with general-risk and safety-perception factors and is not associated with deadly-risk and health-risk factors. The demographic variable location significantly affects both job-risk perception and work injuries, whereas age, experience and designation of employees do not have significant effects. For the SMS studied, it can be recommended that (i) job risk perception can be used as a leading indicator of safety performance, (ii) job-wise safety assessment must be mandatory, and (iii) location specific hazard inspection schemes and their monitoring should be intervened.