Workers' perceptions, knowledge and responses regarding occupational health and safety: A report on a Canadian study

Vivienne Walters and Ted Haines

Social Science & Medicine, 1988, vol. 27, issue 11, 1189-1196

Abstract: This paper presents data from interviews with 492 rank and file workers. It examines aspects of workers' perceptions, knowledge and actions regarding workplace hazards and views these as indicators of the potential strength of labour in improving occupational health and safety. Respondents had a strong consciousness of ways in which their work might damage their health and they or their fellow workers had experienced half of the symptoms they mentioned. However, they lacked information on the results of environmental and medical monitoring, their core legal rights and the more effective strategies for reducing hazards. Few respondents sought information and few were persistent in dealing with their worries about hazards. Knowledge of their rights under the current occupational health and safety legislation was linked with taking such actions. It is suggested that workers' pursuit of their health and safety concerns might be facilitated if they had better access to information about their legal rights and mechanisms for dealing with hazards in the workplace.

Keywords: occupational; health; and; safety; workers'; knowledge; workers'; perceptions; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1988
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(88)90348-6
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:27:y:1988:i:11:p:1189-1196

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().