Fifteen years of American construction occupational safety and health research

Abstract

The researchers reviewed construction occupational safety and health research published in high-impact, peer-reviewed academic journals between 2002 and 2016 to assess whether research in the field is efficiently targeted to produce evidence-based interventions addressing the industry’s most serious occupational hazards. Unlike most previous surveys of the field, this interdisciplinary literature search captured research published in the construction management and engineering literature as well as that in public health and medicine journals. The researchers found 741 articles by US-based lead authors, with falls the most-studied safety hazard (89 articles) and airborne silica exposure the most-studied health hazard (51), both among the deadliest current hazards in construction occupational safety and health, but much asbestos research was sponsored by companies involved in litigation, generating few findings useful for protecting today’s workers. The review described important trends in the literature, including increased attention to noise and hearing loss, a growing number of intervention studies, and greater concern for populations at disproportionate risk (e.g., small/residential, Latino/immigrant, younger/older workers, & women working in construction). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) directly or indirectly funded a majority of the published research. Policymakers should understand that most occupational safety and health research depends on NIOSH funding.