Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features

In UK industry, particularly in the energy sector, there has been a movemen t away from 'lagging' measures of safety based on retrospective data, such as lost time accidents and incidents. towards 'leading' or predictive asses sments of the safety climate of the organisation or worksite. A number of d ifferent instruments have been developed by industrial psychologists for th is purpose, resulting in a proliferation of scales with distinct developmen tal histories. Reviewing the methods and results from a sample of industria l surveys, the thematic basis of Is scales used to assess safety climate is examined. This suggests that the most typically assessed dimensions relate to management (72% of studies), the safety system (67%), and risk (67%), i n addition themes relating to work pressure and competence appear in a thir d of the studies. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.