Empowering employers in work-related injuries prevention: A pragmatic trial

•Evidences about the effectiveness of prevention programmes are still scarce.•Occupational health and safety training can improve worksite protection.•A training programme targeted to employers showed no effect on injuries incidence.•The reduction was comparable with the one estimated in the areas outside ours.•Studies in the field of occupational safety must be conducted using a controlled design. Interest in work-related injury prevention is increasing, but evaluating workplace safety interventions poses a critical challenge on methodological approaches. The hypothesis has been made that safety training programmes targeting management executives could improve worksite safety. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between a training programme for employers and the rate of occupational injuries in a sample of wood processing industries. One hundred forty worksites were randomly assigned to the intervention or the control arms of the study. The intervention consisted in a 6h training course for employers focusing on the benefits, feasibility, and cost-saving connected to safety in the workplace. The primary outcome was the rate of injuries assessed by means of the incidence rate difference (point estimates and 95% confidence interval) in the two arms of the study at the end of the follow-up period. The rate of work-related injuries decreased in both groups, with an incidence rate after intervention of 3.35 and 3.91 (×10,000 working hours), respectively, in the study and control arms, for a difference of −0.56 (95% CI −1.56–0.45). The reduction in injuries from baseline to the end of the follow-up was comparable to that noted in other geographical areas. The intervention programme did not appear to have any effect on the decrease in the rate of work-related injuries. We can hypothesize that the training course did not modify employers’ behavior to affect the incidence of occupational injuries.