Health and Safety Research Library
Browse our shared Zotero collection of occupational health and safety research, articles, and supporting literature.
Workplace Ergonomics
Understanding the biomechanical factors that contribute to musculoskeletal disorders and how to implement ergonomic solutions to reduce long-term injury risks.
Chemical Exposure
An overview of the latest research on airborne contaminants and the critical importance of proper ventilation systems in modern industrial environments.
Psychological Safety
Exploring the intersection of mental health and workplace culture, and how fostering an environment of trust reduces occupational stress and absenteeism.
Thesis & Articles
Explore our curated collection of academic research, thesis updates, and professional articles focused on occupational health and safety.
Workplace Biomechanics & Hazards
An investigation into the correlation between movement patterns, physical strain, and productivity metrics in modern office environments.
Psychosocial Stress in Ontario
A comparative study analyzing the impact of psychosocial stress on employee well-being and organizational performance across various sectors.
Environmental Safety Protocols
Exploring the effectiveness of environmental safety protocols in reducing workplace accidents and improving long-term worker health.
Occupational Health & Safety
A comprehensive review of current research on occupational health and safety, focusing on emerging trends and future research directions.
History of Occupational Health and Safety and Safety Thought
Safety history is not a simple sequence in which newer models replace older ones; regulation, worker rights, industrial hygiene, engineering controls, behavioural science, organizational culture, systems thinking and resilience remain complementary.
1700 – Bernardino Ramazzini and occupational medicine.
Late 1800s–early 1900s – Labour reform and Alice Hamilton.
1930s – Heinrich and the domino/unsafe-act tradition (his 88% claim is historically influential but not settled evidence).
1940s–1960s – Human factors and ergonomics.
1960s–1970s – William Haddon and energy-control injury prevention.
1974–1979 – James Ham, Ontario’s Internal Responsibility System and OHSA.
1978 – Judith Komaki and behavioural safety.
1980 – Dov Zohar and safety climate.
1984 – Charles Perrow and High Reliability Organization research.
1990–2000 – James Reason, latent conditions and organizational accidents.
1997 – Jens Rasmussen and migration toward safety boundaries.
1999 – Amy Edmondson and psychological safety.
2004 – Nancy Leveson and STAMP.
2006 onward – Erik Hollnagel, resilience engineering and FRAM.
2010s – Sidney Dekker, Just Culture and Safety Differently.
2018 – ISO 45001.
2020s – AI, connected systems and Total Worker Health.
How the schools of thought relate
- Industrial Hygiene: Best for identifying and controlling tangible chemical, physical, and biological exposures. Limitation: Often fails to address complex human interactions and psychosocial factors.
- Engineering/Design: Best for eliminating hazards at the source through intrinsic safety. Limitation: Can introduce maintenance complexity and over-reliance on technology.
- Behavioural Safety: Best for addressing routine, high-frequency hazards and individual compliance. Limitation: Risk of victim-blaming and overlooking upstream systemic causes.
- Safety Climate, Culture and Leadership: Best for understanding shared values and priority of safety. Limitation: Difficult to measure objectively and time-consuming to influence.
- Organizational Accident Models: Best for post-incident analysis of latent systemic conditions. Limitation: May struggle to explain everyday safe performance in non-incident scenarios.
- Systems Thinking: Best for managing interdependencies in complex, dynamic Socio-Technical Systems. Limitation: Significant cognitive load to model and execute practically.
- Resilience/Safety-II: Best for enhancing performance variability handling and learning from work-as-done. Limitation: Conceptual abstracts can be difficult to translate into specific regulatory controls.
Essential academic reading
Authors explaining their work
“Ask what each model makes visible, what it leaves invisible, and what decisions it can responsibly support.”