Associations between risk perception and safety

This is an interesting study from `96 (from Torbj?rn Rundmo, one of my favourite authors) which explored the relationship between risk perception and safety. 1,138 offshore oil employees self-completed a questionnaire.

Specifically, the author determined:

1. whether risk perception affects risk behaviour or if risk perception and risk behaviour are independent effect variables, i.e. variables which both may be affected by organizational and social predictor variables such as commitment and involvement in safety work, attitudes towards safety and accident prevention and the status of safety and contingency measures.

2. whether or not risk behaviour influences near-misses and accidents.

Here, subjective assessments of danger are differentiated from objective measures (‘objective risk’ being danger that exists whether or not people are concerned about it; sometimes referred to as statistical risk).

Importantly, though, objective risks are said to be “not more objective than any other risk measure” and this is because of "the generic complexities which are present in risk calculation, which include uncertainty about how to define the problem, difficulties in assessing the facts, and difficulties in assessing the values" (p198).

Rasmussen's distinction between empirical, evolutionary and analytical safety control is discussed.

Small scale accidents, like many work-related events is said to be often controllable through, in part, analysis of past events. This is called empirical safety control. However, empirical safety control isn’t possible when events are infrequent – like medium size and infrequent events (which is argued to reflect things like aircraft or train crashes) and large consequence and low frequency events (nuclear events and the like), the domain of more analytical safety control. This involves, in part, use of modelling risk.

It's argued that, for the offshore oil industry (as of 1996), risk analysis has “largely been dominated by ‘experts’ such as engineers and statisticians who like to think that risk can be given an operational definition and measured in the same way as we measure e.g. ‘length’ and that simple rules can decide when measures should be implemented” (p199).

However, expert judgements of the same risk source can differ between individuals and groups, and expert judgements are “difficult to justify”. Expert judgements of risk also “clearly differ from lay people’s judgments”.

The author argues that one challenge is when “objective” risk calculations aren’t directly linked to respondents’ own experience of hazard interactions, e.g. near-misses, injuries etc.

However, “for an employee who has suffered an injury/ordinary occupational accident this experience may be ‘real’ enough. It is mainly a semantic problem whether an employee’s own experience of near-misses and occupational accidents is termed ‘objective’ or seen as a part of the person’s ‘subjective world’. However, as with ‘objective’ risk calculations, measurements of risk perception have limited value when they are handled apart from the situation in which the employee experiences and deals with risk” (p199).

The author then gives some background on the links between risk perception, risk behaviour and injury experience – noting the relationships to be complex.

Results

Although risk perception and risk behaviour were significantly correlated – they were both effect variables, relatively independent of each other.

Noting this, risk perception wasn’t found to actually predict risk behaviour. Thus, “safety cannot be improved by changing individual risk perception” (p207).

Instead, it’s the “factors which cause variations in risk perception as well as risk behaviour and safety which should be the focus of these efforts” (p207).

Results are said to be indicative that employee risk perception and other subjective assessments may be good indicators of the safety level. That is, if inconsistencies exist between ‘objective’ risk estimates and subjective ones, then focus should be on changing objective levels rather than subjective assessments.

Further development and incorporation of subjective assessments into work contexts should be explored.

Results indicated that perceived risk exerts an influence on risk behaviour to an extent, mediated (at least partially) by job strain. Strain is also affected by physical working conditions. But nothing this relationship, it’s said the direct effects on risk behaviour of organisational and physical working conditions is far stronger than effects from job strain and risk perception.

Thus, organisations should focus more on improving organisational factors and physical danger rather than focusing on perception.

Results didn’t support the assumption that “biased risk perception is a major safety problem” (emphasis added). Conversely, results indicate that employee behaviour is “constrained by the working conditions under which [they] work” (p208).

When conditions aren’t judged to be satisfactory, employees know the risk of suffering an injury is increased; thus, they feel unsafe.

Authors note that when an employee feels at risk he or she also is at risk. Bad working conditions may lead to job strain and insecurity, which may further reduce their capacity to deal with emergency situations [or adaptations, in my view].

Thus, “the risk of accidents are increased not because of a biased perception of risk, but rather because risk is perceived ‘correctly’, i.e. is in accordance with objective risk” (p208).

Of course like any study - the limitations (and age of paper) have to be considered.

Author: Rundmo, T. (1996).?Safety science,?24(3), 197-209.

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