Occupational health and safety management in small and medium-sized enterprises: An overview of the situation in Thailand

One hundred forty responses (22.4% response rate) were received from small enterprises and two hundred twenty-nine (14.7% response rate) from medium size enterprises from 51 provinces all over Thailand. Most of the enterprises arranged several welfare facilities and take good care of health and hygiene of workers. The highest numbers of accident cases were from the production enterprise with 150-199 employees and from the industrial sector of engineering. Essential safety elements for SMEs are accident reports, accident investigation and safety inspections. It is clear that the SMEs in this study had better health and safety management than expected, probably because their products were in the group of the twenty-four highest exporting (by value) commodities of Thailand or they were forced by customers.