Comprehension of hazard communication: Effects of pictograms on safety data sheets and labels

• Pictograms assisted users to locate information more quickly on both safety data sheets and labels.
• For safety data sheets, participants were better at acknowledging physical hazards when hazard pictograms were present.
• Experts' comprehension of safety data sheets was significantly higher than naïve users, but this did not hold true for labels. This finding suggests that GHS hazard and precautionary statements may be well comprehended by naïve users, workers, and experts.

IntroductionThe United Nations has proposed the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals to make hazard communication more uniform and to improve comprehension.MethodTwo experiments were conducted to test whether the addition of hazard and precautionary pictograms to safety data sheets and product labels would improve the transfer of information to users compared to safety data sheets and product labels containing text only. Additionally, naïve users, workers, and experts were tested to determine any potential differences among users.ResultsThe effect of adding pictograms to safety data sheets and labels was statistically significant for some conditions, but was not significant across all conditions. One benefit of the addition of pictograms was that the time to respond to the survey questions decreased when the pictograms were present for both the SDS and the labels. GHS format SDS and labels do provide benefits to users, but the system will need further enhancements and modifications to continue to improve the effectiveness of hazard communication.Impact on industryThe final rule to modify the HCS to include the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for the Classification and Labelling of Chemicals announced by OSHA (2012b) will change the information content of every chemical SDS and label used in commerce. This study suggests that the inclusion of GHS hazard pictograms and precautionary pictograms to SDS and labels may benefit the user.