Safety Culture: A Retrospective Analysis of Occupational Health and Safety Mining Reports

In the mining industry, various methods of accident analysis have utilized official accident investigations to try and establish broader causation mechanisms. An emerging area of interest is identifying the extent to which cultural influences, such as safety culture, are acting as drivers in the reoccurrence of accidents. Thus, the overall objective of this study was to analyze occupational health and safety (OHS) reports in mining to investigate if/how safety culture has historically been framed in the mining industry, as it relates to accident causation.

Using a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, 34 definitions of safety culture were analyzed to highlight key terms. Based on word count and contextual relevance, 26 key terms were captured. Ten OHS reports were then analyzed via an inductive thematic analysis, using the key terms. This analysis provided a concept map representing the 50-year data set and facilitated the use of text framing to highlight safety culture in the selected OHS mining reports.

Overall, 954 references and six themes, safety culture, attitude, competence, belief, patterns, and norms, were identified in the data set. Of the 26 key terms originally identified, 24 of them were captured within the text. The results made evident two distinct frames in which to interpret the data: the role of the individual and the role of the organization, in safety culture.

Unless efforts are made to understand and alter cultural drivers and share these findings within and across industries, the same accidents are likely to continue to occur.