A social network analysis model for analysing stakeholder-associated safety risks in infrastructure projects

An important strategy in the long-term blueprint for making Australia's 18 capital and major regional cities more productive, sustainable and liveable is to develop high quality public infrastructure systems to improve civic quality of life. Because of the unique features of construction activities, such as long period, complicated processes, and dynamic organizational structures, infrastructure projects normally involve multiple stakeholders and are subject to various risks, especially safety issues. Any negligence or mismanagement of critical safety risks will have huge impact on achieving project objectives and success. Although many previous studies have identified and assessed various safety risks in construction industry, a main research gap is that these studies ignored a fact that most risks are interrelated and associated with internal and external stakeholders of the projects. The lack of a theoretical foundation and appropriate methods for analysing stakeholder-associated safety risks and their interdependencies in infrastructure projects hinders effective risk management processes and the formulations of decision strategies. This research aims at enabling higher performance in strategic safety risk management in infrastructure projects through the development of a holistic risk analysis model using Stakeholder and Social Network Theories. The outcomes can broaden project managers' awareness of emerging influential safety risks and enhance their ability to perceive, understand, assess, and mitigate safety risks in an effective and efficient way; thereby higher performance in strategic risk management could be achieved in infrastructure projects.

Protocol for a randomised controlled trial of a web-based healthy relationship tool and safety decision aid for women experiencing domestic violence (I-DECIDE)

BACKGROUND: Domestic violence is a serious problem affecting the health and wellbeing of women globally. Interventions in health care settings have primarily focused on screening and referral, however, women often may not disclose abuse to health practitioners. The internet offers a confidential space in which women can assess the health of their relationships and make a plan for safety and wellbeing for themselves and their children. This randomised controlled trial is testing the effectiveness of a web-based healthy relationship tool and safety decision aid (I-DECIDE). Based broadly on the IRIS trial in the United States, it has been adapted for the Australian context where it is conducted entirely online and uses the Psychosocial Readiness Model as the basis for the intervention. METHODS/DESIGN: In this two arm, pragmatic randomised controlled trial, women who have experienced abuse or fear of a partner in the previous 6 months will be computer randomised to receive either the I-DECIDE website or a comparator website (basic relationship and safety advice). The intervention includes self-directed reflection exercises on their relationship, danger level, priority setting, and results in an individualised, tailored action plan. Primary self-reported outcomes are: self-efficacy (General Self-Efficacy Scale) immediately after completion, 6 and 12 months post-baseline; and depressive symptoms (Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Revised, 6 and 12 months post-baseline). Secondary outcomes include mean number of helpful actions for safety and wellbeing, mean level of fear of partner and cost-effectiveness. DISCUSSION: This fully-automated trial will evaluate a web-based self-information, self-reflection and self-management tool for domestic violence. We hypothesise that the improvement in self-efficacy and mental health will be mediated by increased perceived support and awareness encouraging positive change. If shown to be effective, I-DECIDE could be easily incorporated into the community sector and health care settings, providing an alternative to formal services for women not ready or able to acknowledge abuse and access specialised services. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Trial registered on 15(th) December 2014 with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12614001306606.

The development of a conceptual model and self-reported measure of occupational health and safety vulnerability

Injuries at work have a substantial economic and societal burden. Often groups of labour market participants, such as young workers, recent immigrants or temporary workers are labelled as being "vulnerable" to work injury. However, defining groups in this way does little to enable a better understanding of the broader factors that place workers at increased risk of injury. In this paper we describe the development of a new measure of occupational health and safety (OH&S) vulnerability. The purpose of this measure was to allow the identification of workers at increased risk of injury, and to enable the monitoring and surveillance of OH&S vulnerability in the labour market. The development included a systematic literature search, and conducting focus groups with a variety of stakeholder groups, to generate a pool of potential items, followed by a series of steps to reduce these items to a more manageable pool. The final measure is 29-item instrument that captures information on four related, but distinct dimensions, thought to be associated with increased risk of injury. These dimensions are: hazard exposure; occupational health and safety policies and procedures; OH&S awareness; and empowerment to participate in injury prevention. In a large sample of employees in Ontario and British Columbia the final measure displayed minimal missing responses, reasonably good distributions across response categories, and strong factorial validity. This new measure of OH&S vulnerability can identify workers who are at risk of injury and provide information on the dimensions of work that may increase this risk. This measurement could be undertaken at one point in time to compare vulnerability across groups, or be undertaken at multiple time points to examine changes in dimensions of OH&S vulnerability, for example, in response to a primary prevention intervention.

Individual, occupational, and workplace correlates of occupational health and safety vulnerability in a sample of Canadian workers

Objective: To describe OH&S vulnerability across a diverse sample of Canadian workers.
Methods: A survey was administered to 1,835 workers employed more than 15 hrs/week in workplaces with at least five employees. Adjusted logistic models were fitted for three specific and one overall measure of workplace vulnerability developed based on hazard exposure and access to protective OH&S policies and procedures, awareness of employment rights and responsibilities, and workplace empowerment.
Results: More than one third of the sample experienced some OH&S vulnerability. The type and magnitude of vulnerability varied by labor market sub-group. Younger workers and those in smaller workplaces experienced signficantly higher odds of multiple types of vulnerability. Temporary workers reported elevated odds of overall, awareness- and empowerment-related vulnerability, while respondents born outside of Canada had significantly higher odds of awareness vulnerability.
Conclusion: Knowing how labor market sub-groups experience different types of vulnerability can inform better-tailored primary prevention interventions.

Estimating the effects of United States food safety and agricultural health standards on agro-food exports from Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

HEALTH PROBLEMS AWARENESS DURING TRAVEL AMONG FACULTY MEMBERS OF A LARGE UNIVERSITY IN LATIN AMERICA. PRELIMINARY REPORT

Health safety during trips is based on previous counseling, vaccination and prevention of infections, previous diseases or specific problems related to the destination. Our aim was to assess two aspects, incidence of health problems related to travel and the traveler’s awareness of health safety. To this end we phone-interviewed faculty members of a large public University, randomly selected from humanities, engineering and health schools. Out of 520 attempts, we were able to contact 67 (12.9%) and 46 (68.6%) agreed to participate in the study. There was a large male proportion (37/44, 84.1%), mature adults mostly in their forties and fifties (32/44, 72.7%), all of them with higher education, as you would expect of faculty members. Most described themselves as being sedentary or as taking occasional exercise, with only 15.9% (7/44) taking regular exercise. Preexisting diseases were reported by 15 travelers. Most trips lasted usually one week or less. Duration of the travel was related to the destination, with (12h) or longer trips being taken by 68.2% (30/44) of travelers, and the others taking shorter (3h) domestic trips. Most travelling was made by air (41/44) and only 31.8% (14/44) of the trips were motivated by leisure. Field research trips were not reported. Specific health counseling previous to travel was reported only by two (4.5%). Twenty seven of them (61.4%) reported updated immunization, but 11/30 reported unchecked immunizations. 30% (9/30) reported travel without any health insurance coverage. As a whole group, 6 (13.6%) travelers reported at least one health problem attributed to the trip. All of them were males travelling abroad. Five presented respiratory infections, such as influenza and common cold, one neurological, one orthopedic, one social and one hypertension. There were no gender differences regarding age groups, destination, type of transport, previous health counseling, leisure travel motivation or pre-existing diseases. Interestingly, the two cases of previous health counseling were made by domestic travelers. Our data clearly shows that despite a significant number of travel related health problems, these highly educated faculty members, had a low awareness of those risks, and a significant number of travels are made without prior counseling or health insurance. A counseling program conducted by a tourism and health professional must be implemented for faculty members in order to increase the awareness of travel related health problems.

Fresh Produce Safety and Good Agricultural Practices: Stakeholders' Perception and Consumers' Choice in Thailand

Concerns of Thai consumers on food safety have been recently increasing, especially in urban areas and for fresh produce because food safety scandals, such as chemical residues on fresh produce (e.g., cabbage) still frequently occur. The Thai government tried to meet consumer needs by imposing in the domestic market a stronger regulation aimed at increasing the baseline level of food safety assurance and by introducing a voluntary standard (based on Good Agricultural Practices or GAPs and known as Q-GAP) and the related food safety label (i.e., Q mark). However, since standards and regulations are weakly implemented in the domestic market compared to exported products, there is still a lack of Thai consumers’ confidence in the safety of local food products. In this work the current situation of GAPs adoption in Thai fresh produce production is analysed. Furthermore, it is studied whether Thai consumers place value on food safety labels available on the market, to know whether consumer demand could drive the market of certified safer products. This study contains three essays: 1) a review of the literature, 2) a qualitative study on stakeholders' perception toward GAPs adoption and 3) a quantitative study, aimed at analysing consumers' preferences and willingness-to-pay for food safety labels on fresh produce using a discrete choice experiment. This dissertation contributes to the economics of quality assurance and labelling, specifically addressing GAPs and food safety label in the fresh produce supply chain. Results show that Q-GAP could be effectively used to improve food safety in Thai domestic market, but its credibility should be improved. Stakeholder’s awareness toward food safety issues and the delivery of reliable and sound information are crucial. Thai consumers are willing to pay a premium price for food safety labelled produce over unlabelled ones. Implications for both government and business decision-makers are discussed.

Effects of an educational patient safety campaign on patients' safety behaviours and adverse events

Rationale, aims and objectives  The study aims to investigate the effects of a patient safety advisory on patients' risk perceptions, perceived behavioural control, performance of safety behaviours and experience of adverse incidents. Method  Quasi-experimental intervention study with non-equivalent group comparison was used. Patients admitted to the surgical department of a Swiss large non-university hospital were included. Patients in the intervention group received a safety advisory at their first clinical encounter. Outcomes were assessed using a questionnaire at discharge. Odds ratios for control versus intervention group were calculated. Regression analysis was used to model the effects of the intervention and safety behaviours on the experience of safety incidents. Results  Two hundred eighteen patients in the control and 202 in the intervention group completed the survey (75 and 77% response rates, respectively). Patients in the intervention group were less likely to feel poorly informed about medical errors (OR = 0.55, P = 0.043). There were 73.1% in the intervention and 84.3% in the control group who underestimated the risk for infection (OR = 0.51, CI 0.31-0.84, P = 0.009). Perceived behavioural control was lower in the control group (meanCon  = 3.2, meanInt  = 3.5, P = 0.010). Performance of safety-related behaviours was unaffected by the intervention. Patients in the intervention group were less likely to experience any safety-related incident or unsafe situation (OR for intervention group = 0.57, CI 0.38-0.87, P = 0.009). There were no differences in concerns for errors during hospitalization. There were 96% of patients (intervention) who would recommend other patients to read the advisory. Conclusions  The results suggest that the safety advisory decreases experiences of adverse events and unsafe situations. It renders awareness and perceived behavioural control without increasing concerns for safety and can thus serve as a useful instrument for communication about safety between health care workers and patients.

Safety of lntensive In-Home Family Workers

Violence against social workers and other helping professionals has increased. Within this context, intensive in-home family workers were asked about their safety in working with clients. If family workers stated that that they felt only somewhat safe or not safe at all, they were asked to explain where they are likely to feel unsafe. Findings include concerns about safety. The author suggests comprehensive educational curriculum be integrated in agency training for new hires and seasoned employees; also, training should be implemented to increase worker awareness of potentially violent situations and how to de-escalate and defuse potentially violent clients.

Non-illness-related factors contributing to traffic safety in older drivers: a litterature review

Background/Study Context: Older drivers are at increased risk of becoming involved in car crashes. Contrary to well-studied illness-related factors contributing to crash risk, the non-illness-related factors that can influence safety of older drivers are underresearched. METHODS: Here, the authors review the literature on non-illness-related factors influencing driving in people over age 60. We identified six safety-relevant factors: road infrastructure, vehicle characteristics, traffic-related knowledge, accuracy of self-awareness, personality traits, and self-restricted driving. RESULTS: The literature suggests that vehicle preference, the quality of traffic-related knowledge, the location and time of traffic exposure, and personality traits should all be taken into account when assessing fitness-to-drive in older drivers. Studies indicate that self-rating of driving skills does not reliably predict fitness-to-drive. CONCLUSIONS: Most factors discussed are adaptable or accessible to training and collectively may have the potential to increase traffic safety for older drivers and other road users.

Patient safety in dialysis access

Not only are dialysis access creation and maintenance prone to complications, but patients suffering from end-stage renal disease and its comorbidities generally have a high risk of adverse events during their continuous treatment. Preventive strategies are key to avoid harm and to improve the outcome of the treatment of the growing number of patients with chronic kidney failure, especially as doctors and nurses are not always aware of the consequences of unsafe behavior. This publication is intended for health care professionals – nurses as well as doctors – and aims to raise the awareness of patient safety aspects, combining medical education with evidence-based medicine. After a general overview of the topic, an international panel of authors provides a diversified insight into important concepts and technical tricks essential to create and maintain a functional dialysis access. Contributions to Nephrology, Vol. 184

Food quality awareness : cases from shrimp producers in Thailand and vegetable producers in Vietnam

The high number of import rejections of food commodities suggests that producers in exporting countries are not complying with established standards. To understand why this is the case, we explore the behavior of producers and consumers in developing countries. First, we examine the successful transformation of production practices adopted by shrimp producers in Thailand. In support of the dramatic change in practices, we observe an important role played by the public sector in providing a means to visualize chemical residues and to control processes upstream of the supply chain via a registration system and a traceability system called Movement Document. Furthermore, very active information sharing by the private sector contributes to the dissemination of useful technical and market information among producers. We also examine the knowledge and perceptions of consumers with respect to food safety in Vietnam. We find that consumers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City behave differently toward the third-party certification VietGAP, probably owing to differences in the history of market mechanisms between the two cities.

Health and safety in the construction : subject pending to be included in the curriculum of architecture in Spain

The art of construction is a risky activity that directly affects the life and physical integrity of persons. Since the approval of Law 31/1995, of November 8, Prevention of Occupational Risks was the first legislation that established the current basis in all sectors and then transposed into Spanish law Directive 92/57/CEE called Royal Decree 1627/1997 of October 24, on minimum safety and health dispositions in construction works, measures have been proposed to develop a mixed body of scientific literature composed of researchers and professionals in the field of occupational safety and health, but even today there is still no clear and firm proposal, showing a lack of awareness in the occupational risk prevention and, therefore, a consolidation of the culture of prevention in society. Therefore, the technicians, who make up the building process, can incur in very high responsibilities, such as: Author of the project, Coordinator of Safety and Health during the preparation of the project and during the execution of works, Site Management: Site Manager. This involves the immediate creation of a general training in prevention for all architects starting when still studying, as well as specific training, appropriate and complementary to all the architects that will be devoted to the specialty of occupational safety and health in construction works. That is, first, we must make the responsible bodies aware of the urgent need to integrate risk prevention in the curricula of architecture and later in the continuing education of the profession. It is necessary that our teaching must conform to the laws on safety and health, due to the fact that the law recognizes our academic degrees and professional qualifications to perform functions in that area

Abstraction carrying code and resource-awareness

Proof-Carrying Code (PCC) is a general approach to mobile code safety in which the code supplier augments the program with a certifícate (or proof). The intended benefit is that the program consumer can locally validate the certifícate w.r.t. the "untrusted" program by means of a certifícate checker—a process which should be much simpler, eíñcient, and automatic than generating the original proof. Abstraction Carrying Code (ACC) is an enabling technology for PCC in which an abstract model of the program plays the role of certifícate. The generation of the certifícate, Le., the abstraction, is automatically carried out by an abstract interpretation-based analysis engine, which is parametric w.r.t. different abstract domains. While the analyzer on the producer side typically has to compute a semantic fixpoint in a complex, iterative process, on the receiver it is only necessary to check that the certifícate is indeed a fixpoint of the abstract semantics equations representing the program. This is done in a single pass in a much more efficient process. ACC addresses the fundamental issues in PCC and opens the door to the applicability of the large body of frameworks and domains based on abstract interpretation as enabling technology for PCC. We present an overview of ACC and we describe in a tutorial fashion an application to the problem of resource-aware security in mobile code. Essentially the information computed by a cost analyzer is used to genérate cost certificates which attest a safe and efficient use of a mobile code. A receiving side can then reject code which brings cost certificates (which it cannot validate or) which have too large cost requirements in terms of computing resources (in time and/or space) and accept mobile code which meets the established requirements.

Blasting hazard awareness : surface coal mines.

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