Youth doing dangerous tasks: Supervision matters

Supervisors are partially responsible for ensuring that teens are safe at work. The purpose of this study was to explore whether supervision is related to teens' willingness to do a dangerous task at work.

A mixed-methods study consisting of focus groups and a cross-sectional survey was conducted with teens from two public high schools.

If asked by a supervisor, 21% of working teens would do a dangerous task. After controlling for gender and age, teens whose supervisor did not establish weekly goals (AOR = 3.54, 95%CI = 1.55-8.08), teens who perceived their supervisors as not approachable (AOR = 2.35, 95%CI = 1.34-4.13), and teens who were not comfortable talking about safety issues (AOR = 1.97, 95%CI = 1.08-3.61) were more likely to do a dangerous task if asked by their supervisors.

This study indicates that how teens perceive their supervisor may be associated with whether teens do a dangerous task when asked by their supervisor.