Psychosocial Safety Climate and Trust and Comfort as Recognize, Assess, Minimize, Prepare-Aligned Indicators of Chemical Laboratory Safety Culture

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and trust and comfort (TC) are proposed as key indicators of safe laboratory environments, yet their relationships with both safety behaviors and interpersonal mistreatment remain underexamined in academic chemical contexts. We surveyed NIH-supported trainees working in laboratories that reported following chemical safety protocols (N = 134) using a two-wave design to examine concurrent and prospective associations among PSC, TC, safety compliance, unsafe laboratory practices, and interpersonal mistreatment (HARM; sexual harassment, racial mistreatment, and incivility). PSC and TC were positively associated with safety compliance and negatively associated with unsafe practices and interpersonal mistreatment. Several relationships persisted over a 10 day interval, suggesting that psychosocial safety conditions are relevant to both technical and interpersonal dimensions of laboratory safety. Gender and racial/ethnic group comparisons were descriptive and did not reveal statistically significant differences. These findings support integrating psychosocial safety into laboratory safety frameworks such as Recognize, Assess, Minimize, Prepare (RAMP), using PSC and TC as assessment indicators that can identify social and organizational conditions relevant to minimizing laboratory safety risk.