Effectiveness of Safety Measures Recommended for Prevention of Workplace Homicide

Abstract

Context  Homicide is the second leading cause of death on the job for US workers. Government agencies recommend that employers prevent violence against workers by adopting interventions originally designed to prevent robbery, but the effectiveness of these interventions is unknown.

Objective  To investigate the effectiveness of existing administrative and environmental interventions recommended for preventing workplace homicide.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Population-based case-control study of North Carolina workplaces where a worker had been killed between January 1, 1994, and March 31, 1998, identified through a statewide medical examiner system (cases; n = 105) and an industry-matched random sample of workplaces at risk during the same period, selected from business telephone listings (controls; n = 210).

Main Outcome Measure  Risk of death of a worker due to homicide.

Results  Among environmental interventions, strong and consistent reductions in the risk of a worker being killed on the job were associated with bright exterior lighting (odds ratio [OR], 0.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.3-1.0). Among administrative interventions, the largest beneficial effect was for staffing practices that prevented workers from being alone at night (OR, 0.4; 95% CI, 0.2-0.9). Keeping doors closed during working hours was also associated consistently with substantially reduced risk (OR, 0.4; 95% CI, 0.1-1.1) but was not statistically significant. Combinations of 5 or more administrative measures were associated with significantly lower levels of risk (OR, 0.1; 95% CI, 0.0-0.5).

Conclusions  We found evidence suggesting that eliminating solo work at night could reduce the risk of homicide for workers. Keeping doors closed and using bright exterior lighting or combinations of administrative interventions also appear to be beneficial, but there was no evidence of effectiveness for a number of other recommended measures.