Toward a Systems Framework Coupling Safety Culture, Risk Perception, and Hazard Recognition for the Mining Industry

The United States mining industry has made steady progress to improve worker safety and reduce injuries. Despite these gains, the industry remains largely reactive in its approach to health and safety. There remains a primary focus on lagging indicators, such as the numbers of injuries, hours lost, and hazards found at the worksite. To facilitate a more proactive approach, new methods are needed to evaluate hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors. This work explores the relationships among mine workers’ hazard recognition abilities, the individual’s perception of risk, and the safety culture of the mining workplace. We have conducted a literature review to identify key factors and analytical models in industries where health and safety are a major consideration, including construction, manufacturing, mining, and transportation. Our analysis considered both process-oriented frameworks, such as Systems Thinking approaches, and statistical methods, including Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). A meta-model was then developed to aggregate and examine key factors and potential causal relationships. We discuss the creation of this meta-model, identifying notable structural characteristics and hypotheses for future confirmatory analysis. Use cases are then outlined, including descriptive, evaluative, and generative applications.