Assessing the evidence needs of OSH practitioners in high-risk sectors and occupations

What is the issue?

The available evidence for occupational safety and health (OSH) practitioners in high-risk sectors and occupations is often limited and of variable quality. When robust evidence does exist, significant gaps remain in translating this knowledge into practice.

This study was part of a wider research programme that RAND Europe is conducting to support Lloyd’s Register Foundation in their plans to address these issues through the development of a Global Safety Evidence Centre.

How did we help?

This study aimed to identify the evidence needs of OSH practitioners in high-risk sectors and occupations. It focused on identifying the types of evidence currently used by practitioners as well as what could further support practitioners in decisionmaking, policy development and the implementation of safety interventions. The study also explored types of evidence sources, including how useful, available and accessible they are for practitioners. By ‘evidence needs,’ we mean the specific types of outputs of formal research, data, analysis, expert advice and lessons that practitioners require to carry out their job effectively.

To address these questions, we conducted a review to develop our interview topic guide, semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis of the interview data.

What did we find?

We undertook 26 interviews with 29 individuals, representing practitioners from energy, mining, agriculture, transport, technology, research and academia, construction, medicine, waste management and hazardous chemicals. The practitioners hold roles in industry, government, training organisations or as independent consultants.

Firstly, from these interviews, we found that OSH evidence is multifaceted and should be understood relative to the practitioner and context of use. For instance, workplace—and country-specific dynamics tend to drive practitioner expectations and local variation in the types of evidence available. This is particularly relevant when considering how developed and reliable the local evidence systems and sources are in which the OSH practitioner is working.

Secondly, another important finding was that although some evidence types overlap, efforts to improve occupational health rely more on longitudinal data than those for occupational safety. This suggests that the evidence base required for occupational safety is different from that for occupational health.

A third key area that we found was in the way that practitioners highlighted the importance of the interplay of organisational work cultures and leadership when seeking to develop or sustain strong health and safety working practices. Practitioners expressed that they could not apply safety evidence without considering other subjective organisational decisions, such as decisions formed on the basis of organisational finance, regulation and culture.

What can be done?

Developing direct access or routes to evidence via a Global Safety Evidence Centre could significantly help meet practitioners’ evidence needs. We have compiled a list of ways the Centre could provide value to OSH practitioners:

• Organising ‘evidence’ by what function(s) it can support: for example, evidence to inform policy, develop interventions, conduct inspections.
• Providing accessible pathways to the sources that practitioners require: for instance, encouraging organisations to subscribe to peer-reviewed journals, collating publicly available sources of data.
• Brokering collaboration: for instance, acting as a broker/supporter of methods for breaking down barriers and encouraging research partnerships.
• Signposting expertise beyond OSH when needed for OSH-related decision-making: including expertise in health and specific data analyses is vital in supporting OSH decision-making.
• Encouraging collaborations that address capacity/capability gaps: this includes sharing learning between and within local and regional OSH approaches and cultures.
• Promoting and supporting OSH practitioners in methods for generating evidence where needed: This would involve actively promoting and supporting evidence-collection efforts in the contexts of low- and middle-income countries, as practitioners in these regions are typically underrepresented.