The Difference Between Safety Climate and Safety Culture
The lines between these two concepts are becoming increasingly blurred, but the academic distinction
between the two remains. Safety culture is measured by anthropologists and
ethnographers who look at the history, artifacts, symbols, and infrastructure to
assess a construct that is deeper and more stable than climate. Alternatively, constructs such as
teamwork climate, or safety climate are more of a snapshot of the broader culture in a clinical
area at a given moment in time, so they are more closely related to clinical and
operational outcomes, and more responsive to interventions. Metaphorically, culture is like a vast
and complex set of interconnected highway systems, while climate is the traffic that darts about on the surface. Simply
said, climate is measured with survey questions like "I would feel safe being treated here as a
patient", and is more actionable and responsive than the deeper construct of culture.
Outside of health care, safety climate research has received much attention over the
past two decades, including within railways, nuclear power plants, commercial aviation, manufacturing, industrial
facilities, construction, road administration, and restaurants. In high-reliability
industries, such as commercial aviation, petrochemical platforms, and nuclear
power plants, safety climate is used as a proactive metric of safety to compliment traditional
retrospective metrics such as fatalities, incidents, and accidents.
Safety climate scores predict unsafe behaviors, injury rates, safety-specific organizational
citizenship behaviors, and accidents.
Despite the large and growing body of research in other high-risk work settings, safety climate research
in health care is still in the early stages. Early evidence indicates that safety climate is linked to
clinical and operational outcomes, and is improvable.
Frankel A et al eds: The essential guide
for patient safety officers. Joint Commission Resources, Oak Brook IL 2009. p.13