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U.S. Department of Energy
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Strategies for encouraging miners to stay away from unsupported roof and perform self-protective actions. Information Circular/1991

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5296943

Groundfall accidents have been the leading cause of fatalities in the underground coal mining industry for many years. Statistics from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) indicate that approximately half of the victims of these fatal accidents were in an area where no devices had been installed to support the mine roof. The report was prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to provide guidance to operators of underground mines concerning the use of techniques that may help to keep miners from going under unsupported mine roof. The report is divided into two major sections. The first section reviews the findings from several areas of empirical research pertaining to strategies for convincing employees to avoid unsafe acts and/or adopt self-protective behaviors. The strategies are (1) incentives and feed-back, (2) disciplinary actions, (3) training (primarily fear communications and behavioral modeling), and (4) nondirective techniques. The literature review has a broad focus and should be helpful in making decisions about how to encourage a wide variety of types of self-protective behaviors. The second major section of the report presents an analysis of each strategy's potential for keeping miners away from unsupported roof.

Research Organization:
Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Pittsburgh Research Center
OSTI ID:
5296943
Report Number(s):
PB-91-225094/XAB; BUMINES-IC--9283
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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