Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on the Usage of Safety Helmet Among Oil Palm Harvesters

Background: Occupational Hazards in Oil Palm Plantations

Malaysia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of palm oil, and the oil palm industry is a cornerstone of the national economy, contributing significantly to GDP, employment, and rural development. The industry employs hundreds of thousands of workers across peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak, with fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting being one of the most physically demanding and hazardous occupations within the sector. Harvesters work in direct exposure to a range of occupational hazards, including falling fruit bunches (which can weigh 20–30 kg or more), sharp harvesting tools, uneven terrain, and tropical weather conditions characterised by heat and humidity.

Head injuries represent a particularly serious concern for oil palm harvesters. Falling fruit bunches and fronds can strike workers from heights of 10 metres or more, delivering impacts sufficient to cause severe traumatic brain injury or death. Safety helmets are the primary personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to mitigate this risk, yet compliance with helmet usage in Malaysian oil palm plantations has been reported to be low. Understanding the reasons for this non-compliance—and whether traditional knowledge-attitude-practice (KAP) frameworks adequately explain the phenomenon—is essential for developing effective safety interventions.

Study Design and Methodology

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 109 harvesters working in two oil palm plantations located in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on participants’ sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge about safety helmet usage and head injury prevention, attitudes toward helmet use, and self-reported practice of wearing helmets during harvesting work.

The KAP assessment employed validated scales with responses scored to classify participants into low, fair, and high categories for each domain. Additionally, data on the history of head injuries during plantation work were collected to examine the relationship between KAP scores and injury outcomes. The study also incorporated an intervention component: a toolbox talk on the proper usage of safety helmets was delivered to participants, after which observational follow-up assessed whether practices changed. Pre-intervention and post-intervention practices were compared to evaluate the effectiveness of this educational approach.

Results: The Knowledge-Practice Gap

The descriptive analysis revealed an instructive pattern across the three KAP domains. Knowledge scores were high, indicating that most harvesters were well-informed about the purpose of safety helmets, the risks of head injury from falling fruit, and the correct way to wear helmets. However, attitude scores were only fair, suggesting ambivalence toward consistent helmet use, and practice scores were similarly fair, indicating that a substantial proportion of harvesters did not consistently wear helmets during work despite understanding the risks.

Perhaps the most striking finding was the absence of significant associations between any KAP domain and head injury occurrence. This challenges the common assumption in occupational health that improving workers’ knowledge and attitudes will naturally translate into safer practices and reduced injuries. While the KAP framework has proven useful in many public health contexts, this study suggests that in the specific environment of oil palm harvesting, other factors—including the physical characteristics of available helmets, environmental working conditions, and workplace safety culture—may be more influential determinants of both helmet use and injury risk.

The Intervention: Toolbox Talk Effectiveness

The toolbox talk intervention—a short, focused educational session commonly used in occupational safety programmes—did not produce statistically significant changes in helmet-wearing practices. However, the researchers noted a trend toward decreased non-compliance after the intervention, suggesting that educational approaches may have a modest effect that could accumulate with repeated delivery.

The limited effectiveness of the single-session intervention is consistent with a broader literature showing that one-off educational interventions rarely produce sustained behavioural change in occupational safety contexts. More effective approaches typically combine education with environmental modifications (such as providing more comfortable and appropriate helmets), supervisory enforcement, peer support, and organisational safety culture development. The finding underscores the need for multi-component safety programmes in the oil palm sector rather than reliance on information provision alone.

The Helmet Comfort Problem

A crucial contextual factor identified in this and related research is the discomfort associated with wearing standard safety helmets in tropical plantation conditions. Workers frequently remove their helmets to relieve discomfort caused by the combination of hot, humid weather and the heat-trapping properties of conventional helmet designs. Malaysia’s tropical climate, with daytime temperatures routinely exceeding 30°C and high humidity, makes helmet wearing genuinely uncomfortable during the physically demanding work of fruit harvesting.

This insight has stimulated subsequent research into improved helmet designs specifically for oil palm harvesters. Studies have explored helmets with enhanced ventilation, lighter materials, and designs that account for the unique working postures of harvesters (who must frequently look upward while cutting fruit bunches). The development of a novel safety helmet design incorporating ergonomic principles and even waste by-products from palm trees has been pursued by researchers seeking to create a product that harvesters will actually want to wear. Subsequent research at plantations in Johor, Malaysia, found that a new helmet design was well accepted, with significant increases in acceptance levels across parameters such as comfort, safety, ventilation, and fit over a six-day trial period.

Implications for Occupational Safety Policy

The findings have important implications for occupational safety and health (OSH) policy in Malaysia’s oil palm industry, which has the highest number of occupational accident cases reported to the Department of Occupational Safety and Health. The study suggests that regulatory approaches focused solely on mandating helmet use and providing safety education may be insufficient without complementary investment in making compliance physically comfortable and practically feasible.

For plantation management, the results argue for a comprehensive approach to head injury prevention that addresses both the human and environmental dimensions of the problem. This might include providing helmets designed specifically for tropical agricultural conditions, scheduling harvesting work to avoid the hottest periods of the day where possible, implementing regular rest breaks in shaded areas, establishing buddy systems where workers monitor each other’s PPE compliance, and creating positive reinforcement systems that reward consistent safety behaviour.

Limitations

The study’s cross-sectional design limits causal inference about the relationships between KAP factors and head injury. The relatively small sample (109 harvesters from two plantations in Selangor) may not represent the diversity of working conditions and workforce demographics across Malaysia’s oil palm sector, which includes operations in very different geographical and climatic conditions in Sabah and Sarawak. Self-reported practice data may be subject to social desirability bias, and the single-session intervention design did not allow assessment of longer-term behavioural impacts. The lack of a control group for the intervention component further limits the ability to attribute observed trends specifically to the toolbox talk.