I suppose you’ve heard it too? Statements such as: ‘there is too much focus on safety and not health’ and ‘health is safety’s poor cousin’. This got me thinking – is this actually the case? Whilst it makes sense intuitively, is there any evidence to back this up? Does safety really get more attention than health? Focusing on two aspects, enforcement and culture, I decided to find out.
It is argued, in the context of the United States construction industry, that safety risks receive more regulatory attention than occupational health (1). But is this the case in the UK?
According to the HSE’s own prosecution data, referring to health-risk specific legislation (most recent available), of the 583 defendants prosecuted, only 30 defendants (5%) were prosecuted using specific health risk-related legislation.
Also, HSE commissioned research found that: ‘there is evidence that greater attention is given in regulatory enforcement to matters of occupational safety, despite increasing concern about occupational health matters…The consequence of this is a tendency for the resources of formal enforcement to be much more heavily devoted to safety matters, particularly accidents’ (2).
The literature tells us that organisations focus more of their attention on safety culture-related issues, often neglecting health. For example, in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, one study found that CSR reports mainly contain indices on occupational safety culture-related factors, whereas the reporting of health and wellbeing is rarely covered (3). Additionally, it is claimed that small and medium enterprises appear to be more orientated toward safety cultural issues in the workplace rather than health (4).
Finally, from a mental health perspective, a recent review by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer found that too often employers only focus on physical health and safety risks in the workplace, failing to manage work-related mental ill-health (link 6).
Whilst this is only a snapshot of the research, it would appear that safety does indeed receive more focus than health – both in terms of regulatory focus and cultural aspects. It would appear those statements may be right after all!
It is now up to us in the SHE profession to continue the fight to address this imbalance.
Mental Health and Wellbeing is the focus of the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Theatre at the Safety & Health Expo 2018.
Hear industry leaders share their own personal stories in the brand new Occupational Health and Wellbeing Zone, with talks on mental health, reducing stress, boosting resilience, including a discussion with Santander on how to manage psychological wellbeing for positive business outcome. Seminar topics include : ‘Health risk management approaches’, ‘Using nature-inspired design to improve office occupant health and wellbeing’ and many more debates and panels…
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
Safety & Health or Health & Safety – Digital Health & Literacy Campaign Still using Mental Health as the primary headline for “Wellbeing” that will continue to drive resilience in terms of being readily to adopt a basic set of “given conditions” in the chain of causation leading to “adaptation exhaustion” presenting in ill-health and presenteeism, be that physical or mental manifestation of unaddressed or mitigated work-related stressors. One would have thought that publishing ISO 45001 uderpinning the risks directly linked to “Work Exposure Limits” would have prompted a change in mindset from reactive to pro-active, foreseeable and predictable, workplace… Read more »
I also did not hear about such a topic “Safety is more important than health.” But if you look at this topic from the other side – if the protection of a person is not sufficient, in some area of his life, then his health is likely to deteriorate. For example, if the doors in the house are weak or the lock in the doors does not close tightly, wild animals can sneak into the house and damage both the furniture and the residents themselves. The same can be said about chemicals. Various poisons are deadly to human health, but… Read more »