Abstract
The construction industry is one of the most hazardous industries in many countries. Many studies have asserted that industrial accidents could be prevented by eliminating their root causes. However, given that accident occurrence processes are considerably complex and often invisible, it is difficult to identify and eliminate the root causes. Based on this recognition, this paper aims to analyze the causality of construction accidents on the basis of direct causes that are classified into unsafe actions (UA) and unsafe conditions (UC). A logistic regression is applied to examine associations between UAs and UCs and their significances in triggering construction accidents. Then, a Delphi method is applied to determine the relationships between direct and root causes of construction accidents. This study contributes to an improved understanding of the complex causal process of construction accidents, which is a necessary stepping-stone to prevent construction accidents. Meanwhile, only one-to-one combinations of UCs and UAs are considered in this paper. Thus, follow-up studies to examine the impact of one-to-many or many-to-many combinations are needed.
Highlights
The construction industry has long been recognized as one of the most hazardous industries in many countries [1,2]
The US National Security Council (USNSC) [8] reported that the probability of accident occurrence caused by both unsafe actions (UA) and unsafe conditions (UC) is higher than the probability that they will cause accidents independently
The combination UC2-UA3 caused by root cause 3 affected falling significantly, and UC4-UA3 caused by root cause 4 had the most influence on collapse
Summary
The construction industry has long been recognized as one of the most hazardous industries in many countries [1,2]. According to a Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) report [4], the construction industry accounted for 29.6% of all industries in Korea and the mortality rate of the construction industry (1.90 mortalities per 10,000 workers) was more than the mortality rate of the UK (1.37 mortalities per 10,000 workers). In this regard, numerous researchers have proposed various causation models (e.g., the domino theory, the accident root causes tracing model, etc.) to identify and eliminate the causes of construction accidents [1,5]. The US National Security Council (USNSC) [8] reported that the probability of accident occurrence caused by both UAs and UCs is higher than the probability that they will cause accidents independently
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