Comparison of occupational health and safety awareness of private sector and public employees

Within the scope of the study, it was aimed to compare the occupational health and safety (OHS) awareness of public and private sector employees. For this purpose, a survey was created by evaluating the literature and expert opinions to be applied to public and private sector employees in selected sectors (education, construction, health). This survey was administered face to face to 303 public and private sector employees in the period covering 13.10.2023-15.01.2024. The first part of the survey includes questions about socio-demographic characteristics, the second part includes questions about determining the situation of the workplace and employees in terms of occupational health and safety, and the third part includes questions measuring employees' OHS awareness. According to the findings obtained as a result of the survey conducted within the scope of the research, it was determined that generally there was a statistically significant difference between the OHS awareness levels of public and private sector employees. The data were analyzed with the SPSS® (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) statistical package program. It has been stated that if occupational health and safety practices are not sufficient and regular, the biggest negativity that may be encountered is that the safety conditions of the job pose a risk.