Occupational Health Literacy and Safety Behavior of Operation workers: A case study of Block Rubber Industry, Thailand

Abstract

Thailand is the number one producer and exporter of rubber in the world. The proportion of the export volume of block rubber products compared to all rubber products in 2020 was 46.43%. This sector has the tendency to expand continuously. Promoting safety behaviors is conducive to the good health of working people. The purpose of this cross-sectional research was to study the relationship between personal factors, occupational health literacy, and safety behaviors. The sample group consisted of the operating staff in a block rubber factory in Thailand, a total of 270 people. The data were collected by questionnaires. The descriptive variables were analyzed by descriptive statistics and the correlation was determined by t-test, one-way ANOVA test for variance, and Pearson's Correlation coefficient test.

             The result showed that the operating staff was 65.56% male with a mean age of 39.0 years (+ 8.7 years) with mediocre occupational health literacy ( = 156.11). Their safety behavior level was at a good level (= 4.14). Personal factors including work experience, job position, workplace group, and overtime are correlated with safety behavior at work with the statistical significance (p-value <0.05). It was found that the occupational health literacy in all six elements was positively correlated (r = 0.488) with safety behaviors with the statistical significance (p-value <0.05).

             Therefore, the development of occupational health literacy should be promoted to provide the employees with skills to access, understand, ask, assess, make decisions, apply, and tell others about good practices in health care for themselves and others. The guidelines for improving the level of safe behaviors at work related to personal factors should also be promoted through methods like counseling and training employees by more experienced employees, promoting a working environment that is conducive to the health of all workers, etc.