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Recent Public Attitudes Towards Health and Safety

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Health and Safety in Contemporary Britain

Abstract

This chapter synthesises findings from a range of methodological approaches and sources relating to the nature and content of public attitudes towards health and safety. It argues that we should be cautious about accepting that there is any single, simple, public opinion towards health and safety; the attitudes that underlie these surface opinions are more subtle, complex, and contradictory than that, and reflect some core areas of ambiguity, misunderstanding, and lack of knowledge. While these attitudes are shown to have changed over time, the chapter concludes that there are few grounds for accepting the pessimistic accounts of public opinion presented within political and media discourses. A broad acceptance, or critical trust, in health and safety has endured, and offers a sound basis for future activity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Eight focus groups (containing 67 participants, spread-sampled to ensure a degree of demographic representativeness) were conducted during 2014 at locations across Britain. They were structured to follow a common discussion outline, and were analysed via the development of analytical codes.

  2. 2.

    These reference codes relate to the focus groups undertaken by Almond and Esbester (2016). The codes indicate which of the eight focus group sessions the quote comes from (‘A’ to ‘H’), the participant code within that group (‘1’ to ‘10’), and the time point within that focus group recording where the comment was made.

  3. 3.

    For instance, in one example, a judgemental discussion about the fecklessness of personal injury compensation claimants was reversed into a much more measured assessment once it emerged that one of the focus group participants had made just such a claim in the past (Almond and Esbester 2016: 36).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Paul Almond

  2. School of Area Studies, History, Politics and Literature, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Mike Esbester

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  1. Paul Almond
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Correspondence to Paul Almond .

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Almond, P., Esbester, M. (2019). Recent Public Attitudes Towards Health and Safety. In: Health and Safety in Contemporary Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03970-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03970-7_2

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