OSH inspector ratio to strengthen decent workplace safety and health: a cross-regional trend analysis research

Introduction: Occupational safety and health (OSH) inspectors play significant roles in enforcing OSH policies and monitoring compliance with these policies to sustain decent workplace safety and health performance. However, there is contradictory or limited knowledge in the literature regarding the effectiveness as well as the standardization of the inspector ratios despite the International Labor Organization's (ILO) initiatives to harmonize OSH policies and frameworks globally since its inception. Therefore, this cross-regional trend analysis research investigated the current inspector ratios to improve decent workplace safety and health performance in 85 ILO regions, including Malaysia and Saskatchewan. Methods: This retrospective ecological research utilized annual secondary datasets to analyze the effectiveness and feasibility of baseline inspector ratios in ILO regions. This study performed observational trends in research variables with Microsoft Excel graphs. It also computed a total of 20 plus multivariate regression analyses with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and descriptive statistics using IBM SPSS 30.0 software. Results: The visual inspector ratio trends, along with standard error bars, provided additional tools not only for evaluating the effectiveness of the inspector ratios but also for allowing readers to compare these trends to the expectations set out by the ILO's press release in 2006. This study also validated the literature associated with the effectiveness of inspector ratios. This research has real-world implications for OSH risk management policy, suggesting that the baseline inspector ratios assigned to each regional group may serve as preliminary OSH inspector capacity ratios for the continuous improvement of decent OSH performance. Conclusion: Five baseline ratios for the inspector ratios that warranted careful consideration and further investigation to improve OSH risk management policies and performance were group 1: 0.87 to 1.5, group 2: 0.44 to 1.5, groups 3 and 4: 0.49 to 1.5, and Malaysia: 0.75 to 1.50. Saskatchewan's inspector ratio has been stable (1.0 to 1.5) for the past few years, so this region might also need to investigate other confounders, such as institutional or organizational behavior and OSH culture, to enhance OSH performance. Future researchers might explore or examine the gaps in this study.

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