In early August, Marthe Kent, director, OSHA Office of Regulatory Analysis, submitted an interim status report on the agency's research on safety incentive programs to the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Hazard (NACOSH). The report did not address some of the pertinent questions surrounding the effectiveness of incentive programs in promoting safety and health in the workplace.
"People expected a definitive account of what is a good or bad safety incentive program," says Kent, who is heading the research. "But that is not what we were asked to do - we were asked to review the literature, not evaluate the evidence."