Results of a community-based survey of construction safety climate for Hispanic workers

Hispanic construction workers experience high rates of occupational injury, likely influenced by individual, organizational, and social factors.

To characterize the safety climate of Hispanic construction workers using worker, contractor, and supervisor perceptions of the workplace.

We developed a 40-item interviewer-assisted survey with six safety climate dimensions and administered it in Spanish and English to construction workers, contractors, and supervisors. A safety climate model, comparing responses and assessing contributing factors was created based on survey responses.

While contractors and construction supervisors' (n = 128) scores were higher, all respondents shared a negative perception of safety climate. Construction workers had statistically significantly lower safety climate scores compared to supervisors and contractors (30·6 vs 46·5%, P<0·05). Safety climate scores were not associated with English language ability or years lived in the United States.

We found that Hispanic construction workers in this study experienced a poor safety climate. The Hispanic construction safety climate model we propose can serve as a framework to guide organizational safety interventions and evaluate safety climate improvements.