Positive Behavior and Perceptions of Safety Culture in Academic Research Laboratories

Abstract

In academic labs, organizational culture is an important consideration for safety compliance. This studyexamined perceptions of risk and safety behavior to target training improvement. College of Science lab person-nel (n = 1,066) were invited participate in a web-based survey with the number of respondents (n=97) and theresponse rate (9.1%). Analysis included descriptive statistics and thematic evaluation. The majority of respondentsrated safety as important and agreed training was sufficient, but believed there was room to improve safety culture.Encouraging use of lab-based safety and risk discussions related to new research procedures was identified as areafor improvement. Perceptions of safety among leadership is important to overall lab culture.