Employee Health and Safety and Employee Performance in African Workplaces: A Systematic Literature Review of Safety Training, Personal Protective Equipment and Hazard Control,2013-2026

Purpose. Employers across Africa are asked to invest in safety training, protective equipment and hazard control, yet it remains unclear how far these investments translate into better employee performance. This systematic literature review synthesises evidence published between 2013 and 2026, with a particular focus on Uganda and comparable African settings. Method. The review followed PRISMA 2020 reporting guidance. Structured Boolean searches of scholarly search engines, PubMed/PMC, African Journals Online, publisher platforms and institutional repositories identified 321 records. After de-duplication, screening and full-text assessment against explicit criteria, 20 peer-reviewed studies were included: 13 primary studies and 7 reviews or meta-analyses. Methodological quality was appraised with a five-criterion instrument adapted from the JBI and MMAT tools, and findings were synthesised thematically. Findings. Twelve studies were rated high quality, six moderate and two low. Four themes emerged. First, safety training improves knowledge and compliance, but its effect on performance depends on frequency, practical content and workplace reinforcement. Second, protective equipment is frequently unavailable, unsuitable or unused, and use is shaped more by knowledge, employment security and attitudes than by supply alone. Third, hazard control works best when it is organisational, engineered and backed by management, rather than left to individual behaviour. Fourth, the association between safety and performance is consistently positive but mostly correlational and mediated or moderated by commitment, management support and sector risk. Implications. Evidence from Uganda rests largely on single-site cross-sectional surveys with self-reported measures. Future work should use longitudinal and intervention designs, objective performance records and multi-sector samples. Employers should treat training, equipment and hazard control as one system, not three separate compliance items.