THURSDAY, Feb. 28, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- They don't call it the graveyard shift for nothing.
Night work has long been known to be more dangerous -- and more deadly -- than labor during daylight hours.
Now, a new study says safety truly comes in numbers.
North Carolina researchers say eliminating solo night work is one of the few measures that appears to reduce the risk that workers will be murdered on the job. Another is having well-lighted work areas.
On the other hand, installing video cameras to record crimes, storing cash in safes, and even having security guards don't appear to protect employees from deadly violence.
"I think a lot of the interventions that we evaluated were considered to be intuitive things to do," says Dana Loomis, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina and lead author of the study. "Common sense approaches need to be scientifically evaluated before they're recommended."
A report on the findings appears in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Homicide is the second-leading cause of death on the job in this country, with an average of 20 killings each week. At the suggestion of policy makers, consultants and everyone in between, businesses nationwide have implemented a variety of measures -- from minimum staffing levels at night to aggressive security steps -- to reduce the risk of deadly attacks. How well these work, if at all, is far from certain.
Loomis and his colleagues analyzed the effectiveness of workplace violence prevention measures in North Carolina between January 1994 and March 1998. During that time, there were 105 reported work-related slayings in the state. Sixty of the killings occurred during robberies, 42 stemmed from arguments and the cause of three could not be determined.
The researchers also surveyed a group of 210 businesses located in areas considered to be at high risk for violence and professions vulnerable to attacks. These included taxi drivers, convenience store clerks, bar and club workers, as well as businesses open on Saturday nights, places with largely male or minority employees, and concerns opened within the last two years.
Businesses in the study had implemented a wide range of security measures. Some were environmental, such as having bright lighting outside the front door and posting signs stating cashiers have limited access to money. Some involved stationing guards and installing security gear, such as safes and cameras, to discourage robberies.
The rest involved administrative changes, including training for employees on how to react during a robbery and when to make cash deposits, and altering staffing to avoid having only one employee working nights.
Compared with less secure businesses, those that added at least five administrative measures reduced their risk of workplace murder by 90 percent, the researchers found.
However, individually, only a few steps led to consistent reductions in the risk of worker death. Employees accompanied by at least one other worker at night were 60 percent less likely to be killed than those who worked solo. A brightly lit storefront cut the risk of homicide in half.
The researchers did detect some difference in the effectiveness of security steps at deterring robbery-related killings from personal attacks, but not as much as they expected.
"A lot of the interventions we examined were originally intended to prevent robbery, so one might guess that they might work better to prevent robbery-related violence. But I don't think we can conclude that based on the findings of this research," Loomis says.
Corinne Peek-Asa, a violence prevention expert at the University of Iowa, says the latest study contains few surprises. However, it does underscore the need for a comprehensive program to deter attacks.
"There really is no such thing as a quick fix," Peek-Asa says. "There's a cumulative effect, and what that indicates to me is that a comprehensive program is more effective than buying a piece of equipment or doing one thing."
While some people might expect security guards would be the ultimate protection, Peek-Asa says that many times guards do more harm than good by escalating situations that might be defused with calm.
Jess F. Kraus, director of the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health, says one drawback with workplace violence studies is they tend to bundle all high-risk businesses into one category. Yet, some prevention methods may be effective for one category and not for others.
"Lumping them all together is kind of a wash," says Kraus.
While individual measures may work for specific kinds of businesses, they're unlikely to apply across the board, Kraus says. However, he believes a combination of interventions that focus on factors like lighting and visibility, as well as employee training, may have broad success at reducing worker killings.
"The jury is still out on those issues," he adds.
Kraus' group is studying just such a program for high-risk businesses in California. The results of that study aren't yet available.
What To Do
To find out more about workplace violence, visit the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. NIOSH also has a 1996 report on violence in the workplace.
You can also try the Workplace Violence Research Institute.
