Behavioral safety research in manufacturing settings: A review of the literature

Occupational safety continues to have large humanitarian and economic reper cussions. This is particularly true in the manufacturing industry which has had the highest injury and illness rates for the past three years. Histori cally, attention was focused on determining the factors that correlated wit h safety. However, such approaches have fallen out of favor and the focus h as shifted to manipulating the environment-engineering and behavioral safet y. This manuscript reviews 18 behavioral safety programs implemented in man ufacturing settings according to (a) settings, (b) subjects, (c) experiment al design, (d) dependent variables, (c) intervention effectiveness, (f) mis cellaneous effects, (g) maintenance, (h) integrity and reliability, and (i) social validity. Suggestions for future researchers are discussed.