Health, environment, safety culture and climate – analysing the relationships to occupational accidents

Abstract

A large cross‐sectional survey was conducted amongst employees in the Norwegian offshore oil and gas industry as part of the ‘Trends in Risk Level’ project initiated by the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority in 1999/2000. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between health, safety and (work) environment (HSE). Furthermore to examine the effect of HSE‐related variables and occupational accidents amongst eight different offshore work groups on different installations and within different companies on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). The study is based on a large cross‐sectional survey. The survey was distributed to all employees travelling offshore between December 2005 and March 2006 (N = 9945). The resulting sample consisted of employees employed within different companies on different installations, and working within different offshore work groups. The results showed that the correlations between health, safety and work environment were significant. Differences between the work groups were identified with regard to HSE‐related variables, such as perceived work safety climate and perception of the psychosocial work environment. Perceived work safety climate along with perception of the physical and psychosocial work environment accounted for differing degrees of the explained variance in subjective health status and reported occupational accidents in the different offshore work groups. The study concludes that work group has to be taken into account when studying the effects of work safety climate and perception of the work environment on subjective health status as well as accident frequency. The results also suggest that HSE interventions should be targeted towards the work group level in addition to the organisation as a whole.