Assessing the Knowledge and Practices of Occupational Safety and Health in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Sector of Ghana: A Case of Obuasi

Abstract

It is noted that most developing countries such as Ghana are still grappling with health and safety policies and practices as governments and corporations have made insignificant efforts. The descriptive statistics, chi-square, likelihood ratio test regression, and correlation were used to assess the occupational safety and health knowledge and practices of employees in the artisanal small-scale gold mine in Obuasi. Although majority of the respondents had less than 5 years of job experience, however about 36% and 19% of the respondents had between 4-10 years and 11-15 years of experience respectively. However, the study further observed that an increase in health and safety practices such as safety training, committee, education, facilities, etc. will increase the level of knowledge of respondents on health and safety policies. The study also revealed that the more health and safety practices, the higher the primary responsibility of site managers to ensure that workers are practicing safety. However, the general working conditions of respondents did not meet acceptable standards as revealed by the observation checklist. The study, therefore, recommends that prime Stakeholders in the ASGM need to consider investing in future research on ASGM safety issues to acquire accurate database on ASGM operations safety.

Keywords: occupational safety, occupational health, artisanal and small-scale gold mining, injuries, Accidents