In a study of five workplace safety leading indicator tools conducted at Australia’s Monash University, a questionnaire developed by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) came out ahead for its ability to measure workers’ likelihood of reporting two lagging indicators—near misses and physical injury.
The OHS Vulnerability Measure, a survey designed to assess worker exposures to common hazards while lacking adequate occupational health and safety (OHS) protection, was one of two leading indicator tools that the study team recommended for use by WorkSafe Victoria as a result of the findings.
The other leading indicator tool recommended by the Healthy Working Lives Research Group at Monash was the Psychosocial Job Quality Index (PJQI). It was found to be the best of the five in picking up the likelihood of reporting a mental injury, the third of three lagging indicators of interest to the study team.
The two measures “appear to be most suitable for future use in a refined questionnaire for the specific purposes of identifying at-risk workers,” stated the study report (PDF, 1.8MB), noting that further validation and testing of the refined questionnaire would be an important next step.
Commenting on the study, IWH President and Senior Scientist Dr. Peter Smith says the findings are encouraging. At the Institute, we’ve conducted several studies validating the OHS Vulnerability Measure, but it’s always gratifying to see it stand up to evaluation by other research organizations and in non-Canadian samples of workers,
says Smith, who led the team that developed the OHS Vulnerability Measure and the framework behind it.
We’re encouraged to see our potential contribution in what may be an important initiative by WorkSafe Victoria to regularly collect information that helps it both address the risks of work-related injury and illness, and monitor changes in risk over time—especially in response to system-level activities.
