Study Shows Worker Safety Dependent on High-Level Decisions

Workers depend on employers to create policies that keep them safe from on-the-job injuries.

2012-03-22

March 22, 2012 (Press-News.org) Workplace safety is a major problem in the United States. Every year, approximately 6,000 workers are killed, and millions more are injured, in on-the-job accidents.

Safety is everyone's responsibility. Management, however, often tries to place the burden on workers alone. A new study from the University of Georgia shows that this emphasis might be misplaced. It found that high-level decisions about workplace safety and work-life balance can greatly reduce workplace accident rates.

The study examined employees' perceptions of workplace climates across a wide variety of industries and occupations. Its purpose was to uncover trends and factors that were linked to workplace injury rates.

Safety Linked to Employee Support, Work-Life Balance

The researchers surveyed employees on a number of factors including, participation, work-family interference, relationships between management and employees, safety climate, and supervisor support.

They found that employees' perceptions that a company ran smoothly and placed minimal constraints on worker performance could decrease injury rates by as much as 38 percent.

Further, rates of work-related personal injury were down by 32 percent at companies where employees perceived that the organization was focused on worker safety. Researchers found that actual day-to-day practices mattered much more than formalized safety procedures.

Interestingly, the study also found that a company's commitment to work-life balance plays a large role in worker safety. When workers perceive that job duties are interfering with family life -- or vice versa -- the rate of workplace injuries goes up by 37 percent.

According to the study's authors, these trends held true across all industries and occupations.

The study shows just how important organizational attitudes about employee wellness are to workplace safety. It is not enough for employers to simply impose safety rules and establish penalties for their violation. Instead, management needs to take responsibility for promoting a safe, and injury-free, work environment.

Article provided by Arata, Swingle, Sodhi & Van Egmond
Visit us at www.centralvalleylawfirm.com/

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Antidepressant use during pregnancy and high blood pressure

2012-03-22

Use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants during pregnancy appears to be linked with increased risk of pregnancy induced high blood pressure ("hypertension"), but a causal link has not been established. Pregnancy hypertension is sometimes linked with pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that can harm pregnant women and their unborn babies. But the authors stress that pregnant women should not stop taking their prescribed medication; instead they should seek a consultation with their doctor if they are concerned. Out of 1,216 women, the overall ...

Baboons, infants show similar gesturing behavior, suggesting shared communication systems

2012-03-22

Both human infants and baboons have a stronger preference for using their right hand to gesture than for a simple grasping task, supporting the hypothesis that language development, which is lateralized in the left part of the human brain, is based on a common gestural communication system. The results are reported in the Mar. 21 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Helene Meunier of the University of Strasbourg in France, found that hand preference of both infants and baboons for grasping tasks depended on the location of the object, but ...

People without a sense of smell have enhanced social insecurity

2012-03-22

People born without a sense of smell experience higher social insecurity and increased risk for depression, according to a study published Mar. 21 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The authors of the study, led by Ilona Croy of the University of Dresden Medical School in Germany, investigated 32 individuals born without a sense of smell, known as isolated congenital anosmia. They found that the non-smellers did not have significant deviations from the norm in terms of many daily smell-related functions, such as food preferences and eating behaviors, but they did ...

15 percent of American physician workforce trained in lower income countries

2012-03-22

Fifteen percent of the American active physician workforce was trained in lower income countries, which is beneficial for the United States both clinically and economically but may have negative impacts on the countries of origin that are losing their educational investment, according to a report published in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Maryland, identified 265,851 physicians currently practicing in the United States who completed their medical education in other countries, and determined ...

Sex Offender Registration in California

2012-03-22

Sex offender registration has been a prominent, national issue since the 1990's. Amid public pressure after the brutal rape and murder of a young boy in Florida, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Act. This act, named after the boy, was designed to provide states with guidelines for creating their own sex-offender registration laws. States based many of their provisions on the federal law, which was designed to target those who were likely to reoffend. In 2006, Congress passed The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (AWCPSA), which strengthened many of the requirements ...

Listen to neurons in your own backyard with the SpikerBox

2012-03-22

Amateurs have a new tool for conducting simple neuroscience experiments in their own garage: the SpikerBox. As reported in the Mar. 21 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE, the SpikerBox lets users amplify and listen to neurons' electrical activity – like those in a cockroach leg or cricket torso – and is appropriate for use in middle or high school educational programs, or by amateurs. The work was a project from Backyard Brains, a start-up company focused on developing neuroscience educational resources. In the paper, the authors, Timothy Marzullo and Gregory Gage, ...

Mice infected with Toxoplasma gondii parasite show Alzheimer's improvements

2012-03-22

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has some favorable effects on the pathogenesis and progression of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports a Mar. 21 study in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly hosted in cats and generally known for the potential complications it can cause for human pregnancies, suppressed the immune system. The researchers behind today's study, led by Eun-Hee Shin of the Seoul National University College of Medicine, found that this immune system suppression had positive effects on Alzheimer's disease mouse models, ...

Brains of frequent dance spectators exhibit motor mirroring while watching familiar dance

2012-03-22

Experienced ballet spectators with no physical expertise in ballet showed enhanced muscle-specific motor responses when watching live ballet, according to a Mar. 21 report in the open access journal PLoS ONE. This result when watching such a formal dance as ballet is striking in comparison to the similar enhanced response the authors found in empathic observers when watching an Indian dance rich in hand gestures. This is important because it shows that motor expertise in the movements observed is not required to have enhanced neural motor responses when just watching ...

Tax Refunds and Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

2012-03-22

In only a few weeks, taxes are due. Which begs the question: if you are going through Chapter 7 bankruptcy or are considering filing for bankruptcy, what tax rules apply to you? Can you spend your tax refund if you are in the midst of bankruptcy? If you haven't filed for bankruptcy yet, should you use your tax refund to pay back some of your debts? The first thing to note is that a tax refund is included as an asset for bankruptcy estate purposes. In other words, if your tax refund is not exempt, the bankruptcy trustee will collect your refund as part of your bankruptcy ...

Research identifies the beginnings of COPD

2012-03-22

The third most deadly disease in the U.S., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), appears to be partly driven by the action of immune cells circulating in the blood entering into the tissues of the lungs. UC Davis scientists have discovered that this key process begins in the blood vessels around the large airways in the center of the lung. The discovery helps clarify how smoking can bring about this severe respiratory condition. The research also identifies a potential new target for directed drug therapy to counter the disease, which kills about three million ...

Study Shows Worker Safety Dependent on High-Level Decisions

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: