Citation

Taylor GA. J. Health Saf. Res. Pract. 2013; 5(1): 24-27.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Safety Institute of Australia, Publisher LexisNexis Media)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Concerns have been expressed by the Australian Industry Group (AIG) about workplace literacy, including its impact on health and safety at work.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is currently conducting an updated survey of adult literacy in Australia. Previous papers have addressed the issue of readability of occupational health and safety (OHS) documents including Australian and some overseas governments' OHS documents, and a sample of business organisation OHS documents.

This paper proposes a method for improving readability and hence comprehension of OHS documents by replacing a range of words of three or more syllables. It finds that the method, despite certain constraints, could indeed achieve significant improvements in readability grade.

Language: en