A Research Study on Prevention of Occupational Accidents in the Construction Sector during the Design Process

Abstract

Safety by design has recently become one of the most significant research topics. It is believed that safety by design will provide profits to the construction sector by improving efficiency, reducing operating costs, reducing hazards and risks, and decreasing expensive accident prevention methods on the site. The aim of this study is to determine the awareness of the safety by design in the Turkish construction sector, and to raise awareness of the importance among the professional stakeholders in order to anticipate occupational accidents at the design stage, and implement the accident prevention applications early in the design process. Because the construction sector is hasty and fast, pre-construction executions have always been perceived as a waste of time, and the issue of prevention through design, which is the subject of this study, also takes place in the pre-construction stage. Due to the fact that the work related to the health and safety of the workers takes time and creates financial requirements, it is sometimes perceived as unnecessary by employers. Particularly, small-scale construction companies, make investments on safety only to protect themselves from legal sanctions. In order to identify the awareness of safety by design among the stakeholders in the sector, the data required for this study were collected through a questionnaire. The results of this study show that although the sector awareness on safety by design has emerged, there is still a huge gap in terms of implementation. It will be possible to fill this gap by increasing the awareness of the designers (architects, civil engineers) and increasing the legal supervision and penal sanctions.