<p class="1"><span lang="EN-US">Academic laboratories considered as more hazardous than industry due to relaxed approach of academic management for chemical safety. This study designed to analyze the safe work practices and facilities by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Varimax rotation. A designed checklist of 26 safety items administered personally in 68 academic laboratories in a Saudi university. From EFA, five factors were extracted: “Availability of laboratory safety documents (5 items, α = 0.92)”, “Maintenance of fume hood (2 items, α = 0.75)”, “Proper chemical storage (3 items, α = 0.64)”, “Proper use of fume hood for chemical handling (4 items, α = 0.62)” and “Laboratory safety labelling (2 items, α = 0.73)”. The results revealed the 5 factors model that grouped 16 safety items that may be crucial for chemical storage, fume hood, laboratory safety plans and labels in the academic laboratories. The extracted factors derived from EFA are expected to help in the development of chemical safety management in the academic laboratories. </span></p>

The use of chemicals in academic/research laboratories is obvious which need proper university's safety management. It is the prime responsibility of university top management to protect laboratory staff from chemical health risks during their work. This study elaborates a methodology for the implementation of a Chemical Health Risk Assessment (CHRA) program in a University's chemical laboratories. The objective of this CHRA program is to identify and evaluate the risks of chemical exposure among laboratory staff. The qualitative observation of CHRA program identified two categories of risk, one is a significant risk but already adequately controlled could increase in future, second is risk significant now, and not adequately controlled. Based on the conclusion of CHRA program proactive suggestions were made to reduce the risks of chemical exposure among laboratory staff. This study can be useful to implement CHRA program in chemical laboratories of a university to assess the risk of chemical exposure and required control measures for the protection of laboratory staff.

The purpose of this paper is to study the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors on the safety leadership at various Saudi universities. A Likert Scale response type standardized questionnaire was administered among staff and students (n = 60) of 30 universities who attended a symposium regarding safety at universities, and a 100% response rate was observed. A two-way MANOVA analysis was performed to check the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors, and the results were discussed with different significance levels. The results showed the study population with an overall agreed (3.9/5) response about the role of academic safety leadership. Overall responses for safety caring (4.0/5) and safety controlling (4.0/5) followed the response of safety coaching (3.8/5). This study indicates that the perception of safety leadership varied with respect to the nature of the job, and workers with greater work experience have a traditional belief of utilizing personal experience for effective safety leadership rather than specialized measures. University staff with accident experience showed a poor response to safety leadership and safety initiatives such as formulation of the safety committee and availability of safety training. Identified deficiencies can be useful to raise positive safety leadership in the Saudi universities and can be useful to improve the relative poor response.

The safety performance of the industrial enterprises in Khartoum city was the best. The safety performance in the chemical sector was the worst with regard to FSI and DAFR. The age, sex, and educational level of injured workers greatly affect safety performance.

Systematic management of occupational safety and health (OSH) issues requires attention in many aspects like regulatory, technical, organizational and managerial. Approaching OSH from an organizational culture perspective can also facilitate achieving sustainable improvements in organizational OSH performance. OSH culture helps in seeing and organizing safety from different perspectives and should not be reduced to a matter of culture only. The knowledge, information and data gathered is expected to be very useful in the process of improving OSH-related procedures, practices and policies, eventually leading to enhanced OSH performance. This paper attempts to describe a cultural approach towards understanding organizational OSH. It will help the readers, professionals, authorities, and policy makers in understanding OSH from a cultural point of view, and how to assess this OSH culture as part of the of organizational improvement process. The aim is to disseminate latest information on this complex topic, trying to build a bridge between practice and research. The scientific literature shows these two terms, safety climate and safety culture, are often interchangeable, but they are distinct but related concepts. The word "safety culture" is a complex and persistent feature reflecting fundamental assumptions, expectations, norms and values, which are also represented by societal culture while "safety climate" best pronounces attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of employees classically measured by surveys and observations. Safety culture measurement requires detailed investigation of how members in an organization interact to form a shared view of safety. This paper explores the ideas of an organization’s safety climate and culture for the purpose of determining which is more advantageous for accurately describing a "state of safety”. Preliminary results of a case study from a water and power project from Saudi Arabia has been added.

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Low back problems are emerging as important work-related health disorders especially among computer office workers with substantial cost. The most prominent feature, of these conditions, is low back pain (LBP).The present study was designed to investigate low back problems among office workers in relation to ergonomic factors at work and to analyze cost-benefit of a suggested ergonomic program for management of this problem. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the office work department in a petroleum company in the Western desert. The study included 120 office workers. All participants were subjected to a predesigned questionnaire emphasizing occupational history, clinical examination, anthropometric measurements, and ergonomic checklist for subjective assessment. The LBP was defined whether non-specific, radiating, persistent specific, or chronic. A parallel objective assessment of the computer desk workstations (n = 62), which were shared by workers, was carried out by experienced ergonomists with the same previous checklist. Medical records were reviewed for assessment of the cost of low back problems in the years (2007)(2008)(2009).The cost of a suggested ergonomic program was calculated for 3 years according to the market price in order to calculate cost-benefit ratio of such a program in prevention of LBP. Results showed that 61% of the examined workers gave history of LBP within the previous 3 years and clinical signs were detected in 32% of the workers. There were no significant differences between subjective and objective assessments of the different items scores of the ergonomic checklist. The lowest mean scores were reported for the chair and the work habits and training; both were negatively correlated with LBP intensity and duration. The suggested ergonomic program entails correction of the defective items to meet the standard ergonomic healthy criteria, provision of 6 periodic ergonomic training programs and enforcement of healthy work and life style habits. The final cost-benefit ratio of the ergonomic program for management of LBP among office workers of the present study was 1: 3.67 which is considered cost beneficial. Properly designed ergonomic programs are cost beneficial in management of LBP among office workers.

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