Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 3;25(1):2318.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23347-2.

Risk perception, barriers, and working safely with silica dust in construction: a psychological network approach

Tom Jansen  1 , Myrthe von den Benken  2 , Gabriela Lunansky  3 , Evi van Moll  2 , Marre Lammers  2
Affiliations

Risk perception, barriers, and working safely with silica dust in construction: a psychological network approach

Tom Jansen et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: In the construction industry workers are frequently exposed to hazardous substances. To explore and describe construction workers' barriers and motives to (not) work safely with hazardous substances, we examined their perspectives on the health risks, perceived barriers, and intention to use preventive measures with regard to silica dust. Specifically, we studied perspectives on the use of face masks, dust collection on power tools, and using a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom.

Method: Semi-structured interviews (n = 13) and a pen and paper survey (n = 187) were administered on construction and training sites. Only executive workers could participate in the study. We approached the behaviour of using specific preventive measures as an emergent property of a complex network of interacting psychological variables. To analyse the structure of these 'behavioural decision networks' we applied a psychological network.

Results: Through the exploratory semi-structured interviews, we identified themes relevant for our survey, like perceived exposure, risk being considered as part of the job, and perceived barriers like time, effort, and properties of the work environment. Construction workers were generally aware their health is at risk due to occupational exposure to silica dust. At the same time, they are not overly concerned about that risk. Network analysis suggests that concern does play a moderate role in the behavioural decision networks, suggesting that a lack of concern may encourage unsafe behaviour. Construction workers' level of automaticity to use specific preventive measures was relatively low. Barriers to use preventive measures such as time and effort play a relatively key role in the networks. A general intention to work safely hardly played any role in the networks, while a specific intention to use preventive measures played a more prominent role. Age and work experience did not play a role in the network. Non-parametric tests and descriptive comparison of networks suggest differences in for example the relative importance of specific variables.

Conclusions: For two preventive measures, different variables may be more successful intervention points to foster safe work. Increasing levels of concern, improving automaticity of use, addressing specific intention to use preventive measures in risk communication, and offering preventive measures at time and location where relevant tasks are performed, are discussed as possible intervention points to foster working safely with silica dust in construction. Future studies should further substantiate these findings.

Keywords: Behaviour; Construction; Occupational health and safety; Preventive measures; Psychological network analysis; Risk communication; Risk perception; Silica dust.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was registered (VLH-544) at the study register for human-related research at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The Centre for Clinical Expertise assessed whether the study complies with the specific conditions as stated in the law for medical research involving human subjects (WMO). The committee concluded that this study 1) does not constitute medical-scientific research, 2) does not subject participants to burdensome procedures, and 3) does not impose behaviour on participants. The committee therefore concluded the study is exempted by National and European law from ethical approval by an ethical committee in accordance with the National Law on medical research involving human subjects (WMO), Paragraph 1, article 1b and the European Clinical Trial Regulation 536/2014, Article 4. Because no other formal ethical frameworks were in place at time of the study, an (non-medical) ethicist was consulted about the research design, for the drafting of information letters, and post-research consultation for participants regarding possible health effects of long-term work with silica dust. All participants received information on the study goals and participants’ rights before providing written consent to participate in the study. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic representation of a network topology. Note. For illustrative purposes only. Red lines (i.e. ‘edges’) indicate a negative relationship, indicating that a higher value of one variable (i.e. ‘node’) is associated with a lower value of the other variable (and vice versa). For example, in this schematic representation a higher perceived barrier to work safely is associated with a lower intention work safely. Green lines indicate a positive relationship indicating that a higher value of one variable (i.e. ‘node’) is associated with a higher value of the other variable. Thicker lines indicate a stronger relationship. Unconnected nodes are independent from other nodes, taking into account all the other nodes in the network
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Face mask behavioural decision network (a) and strength centrality plots ordered by strength (b). Note. Colours indicate categorization as presented in Table 4
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Dust Collection behavioural decision network (a) and strength centrality plots ordered by strength (b). Note. Colours indicate categorization as presented in Table 4
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Vacuuming behavioural decision network (a) and strength centrality plots ordered by strength (b). Note. Colours indicate categorization as presented in Table 4
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. LEXCES. Why are we here? Landelijk Expertise Centrum Stoffengerelateerde Beroepsziekten. 2021. www.lexces.nl/en/about-lexces. Accessed 30 Jul 2024.
    1. Netherlands Labour Authority. Annual report 2021. 2022.
    1. Bosnjak M, Ajzen I, Schmidt P. The theory of planned behavior: selected recent advances and applications. Eur J Psychol Assess. 2020;16:352–6. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ajzen I. The theory of planned behavior. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 1991;50:179–211.
    1. Janz NK, Becker MH. The health belief model: a decade later. Health Educ Q. 1984;11:1–47. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources