With around 500 million people affected by work each year, designing context appropriate interventions is vitally important for improving health and safety outcomes in the workplace.
  • Dates1 June 2021 to 30 November 2021
  • SponsorLloyds Register Foundation
  • Funded£49,668
  • PartnersQueensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Workplace health and safety is a significant global issue. Failure to consider contextualisation processes may result in a misalignment between safety interventions and the context of application with adverse consequences. We address this knowledge gap in three ways. A comprehensive rapid evidence assessment shows that interventions represent administrative controls and opportunities to learn from success and failure are missed. A screen of nationally and internationally recognised training materials and interviews with experienced trainers shows that courses rarely consider the influence of context on the intervention being trained. A set of 17 multi-sector cases identified contextual factors contributing to the successful and unsuccessful deployment of safety interventions. It is vital therefore that Occupational Safety and Health professionals and practitioners consider both the type of intervention and the wider context in which that intervention exists.

Impact and findings

Final report and summary report are both available.

Further information

This project builds on work sponsored by Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) (see report), and developed further in the publication in Safety Science Pilbeam, C., Davidson, R., Doherty, N. and Denyer, D. (2015).

Networks of influence: practising safety leadership in low hazard environments. Pilbeam C, Denyer D, Doherty N, et al.

Designing safer working interventions through a literature review using a mechanisms-based approach. Safety Science 2019; 120: 352-361. DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2019.07.017.