Cause analysis of construction safety accidents in China using association rules

Abstract

In China the number of accidents and deaths in construction industry is increasing rapidly in recent years. Cause analysis is important to reveal the main factors contributing to the accidents, and therefore improve the safety mechanism for accident reduction in future. In this paper, 653 construction safety accidents in China which are fully investigated and formulated by a set of country-specific factors are used as the source data of potential causal relationships among the factors. By utilizing association rules a total of 13 main factors contributing to accident causation are explored, and 9 factors significantly impacting on the severity of accidents are identified. The discovered association rules offer scientific grounds for Chinese construction safety management and decision support. The novelty of this study is to present a different perspective during cause analysis in which the factors impacting the construction site safety and the consequences of construction accidents are revealed respectively.