Safety Of Construction Workers Research Articles

Increasing Engineers’ Role in Construction Safety: Opportunities and Barriers

A number of factors suggest engineering and construction professionals should discuss increasing designers’ role in construction safety. Design civil engineers could contribute to construction worker safety by performing five tasks differently than current custom and practice: reviewing their designs, creating design documents, assisting the owner in procuring construction, reviewing submittals, and inspecting work in progress. However, four sets of major barriers would prevent designers from increasing worker safety through these tasks: lack of safety expertise, lack of understanding of construction processes, typical contract terms, and professional fees. Potential ways for reducing these barriers are suggested. The United Kingdom regulations requiring engineers to design for safety are summarized, but it is concluded that similar legislation in the United States would not be appropriate.

Adequacy of Health and Safety Training Among Young Latino Construction Workers

This study aimed to assess the adequacy of safety training provided to young Latino immigrant construction workers. The study posited that, because of their youth and immigrant status, these workers would be less likely to receive adequate training. We interviewed 50 youths aged < or =21 who had worked at least 10 days in construction in the previous year. The in-person interview included 140 questions covering a range of construction work and health and safety experiences. Participants reported performing a range of hazardous tasks, some while under the age of 18. Of these, 68% to 72% reported receiving some training, but median training time was only 1 hour. Only 24% reported receiving written training material. Those with less English ability received less training. Young Latino immigrants in this study received inadequate training given the hazardous work they performed. Results of this research, especially the relatively low level of English communication skills among young Latino workers, point to the need for increased bilingual services not just in worker safety training programs, but also in medical clinics and emergency rooms that treat Latino workers.

HIV and AIDS in South African construction: is age nothing but a number?

Recently the South African government introduced new legislation to regulate the construction industry and, in particular, redistribute the responsibility for construction worker safety and health to include all industry participants. Consequently, the need to maintain and promote construction workers' health and working capacity has been given an increased prominence. Considering that the highest rates of new infections are reportedly occurring on the African continent, the fight against HIV and AIDS in the workplace has become an African priority. A comparative assessment is carried out on the levels of knowledge, perceptions and beliefs, and behaviours of construction workers in South Africa relative to HIV infection and AIDS. The levels of knowledge and awareness of HIV and AIDS among construction workers younger than 40 years of age (‘younger workers’) are compared with those of workers older than 40 years (‘older workers’). A regional exploratory study commenced in August 2002. Both age cohorts of construction workers generally had acceptable levels of knowledge, perceptions and attitudes on most issues relative to the disease. However, several areas are highlighted where they had deficient knowledge and attitudes or demonstrated high levels of uncertainty. Overall, younger workers had lower levels of uncertainty and deficient knowledge. There were several areas where these were common irrespective of age. These are the areas that deserve urgent employer driven interventions.

Injury minimization in construction projects

Over many years, a great deal of effort has gone into reducing the number of people who are killed and injured as a result of performing construction work. Despite countless health and safety initiatives and campaigns, the industry remains dangerous. We believe that there are more effective ways of improving the safety of construction work. It must value and involve the people at risk.

Safety in design: a proactive approach to construction worker safety and health.

(2003). Safety in Design: A Proactive Approach to Construction Worker Safety and Health. Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene: Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 339-342.

Simulation analysis of accident delays in utility trenching operations

The construction industry has had a disproportionately high rate of accidents, for its size. Although improvements in construction worker safety have been achieved, the construction industry continues to lag behind most other industries with regard to safety. This study, which is one of several studies on accident prevention in the construction industry, identifies the effect of accidents and intends to increase employer and worker awareness of potential hazards in the workplace. In order to measure the effect of accidents, this study adopted a quantitative approach to measuring productivity loss from an accident in terms of a delay in utility trenching operations. The research finding indicates that the increasing rate of productivity loss following accidents is decreasing, although the probability of the occurrence of accidents is consistently increasing, which means that productivity is not lowered as much as the probability of the occurrence of an accident is increased. It is also notable that the backfill activity, which is one of three major activities comprising utility trenching operations, is most vulnerable to productive loss due both to the variations in the probability of the occurrence of accidents and to the extra durations, whereas the pipe installation activity is more sustainable than the other activities. Efforts to identify the effect of accidents on productivity, such as potential productivity loss, may help superintendents make more appropriate decisions regarding safety on-site, thereby balancing accident prevention with productivity.

A STUDY OF MANAGEMENT ATTITUDES TO A PERFORMANCE APPROACH TO CONSTRUCTION WORKER SAFETY

The construction industry remains the most dangerous industrial sector to be employed in. This poor safety and health performance record has resulted in safety and health regulations being subjected to major revisions in many countries during the last three decades. In several cases, new legislative and regulatory approaches have replaced existing regulations and legislation. The international trend of moving away from deemed-to-comply or command-and-control approaches to a performance-based approach presents formidable challenges to the construction industry. Changing to a performance approach demands a radical departure from the old way that contractors conduct their business. This change requires a paradigm shift and as such will be difficult to bring about. However, without management of construction firms supporting and driving the change, it is unlikely that the performance approach could be implemented effectively and successfully. Executive commitment and investment is demanded that is cognitive, emotional and financial, but also consistently visible. This paper discusses the results of a survey of managers of construction firms in the United States regarding their attitude to a performance approach to construction safety. The objective of the study was to measure the support for a change from the present prescriptive paradigm to a performance one. The findings suggest that management of construction firms supported the introduction and implementation of a performance approach to construction worker safety.

Addressing construction worker safety in the design phase: Designing for construction worker safety

Facility designers can positively influence construction site safety by integrating safety considerations into the design process. Although their potential influence on safety has been documented, designers typically lack knowledge of and limit their involvement in construction worker safety. This research effort involved the accumulation of suggestions for improving construction worker safety while in the design phase. Using these design suggestions, a design tool has been developed to assist designers in identifying project-specific safety hazards and to provide best practices to eliminate the hazards. Although use of the design tool is voluntary in the United States, it is one resource which can be used by designers to fulfill their obligations required by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations in UK.

Liability in Designing for Construction Worker Safety

The construction industry has evolved from a master builder system into, predominantly, the two separate fields of design and construction. Industry organizations and state legislation have established a boundary between design and construction by defining expected scopes of work and standards of practice. Though the boundary may sometimes appear immovable, repositioning of this boundary has occurred following the development of new knowledge, technologies, and practices. One new area of knowledge that currently challenges the boundary involves construction worker safety. Specifically, new safety knowledge exposes the design professional's significant influence on worker safety. Through this knowledge and a new design tool, designers can now participate in mitigating construction safety hazards. Addressing worker safety can affect one's liability exposure to injured workers. Based on past legal cases and the concepts of practice standards and professional duty, failure to employ the new safety knowledge may lead to increased liability exposure for design professionals within the design-bid-build system of project delivery. As a result, the design community should consider incorporating an effort to design for construction worker safety into its scope of work. Implementation of the new safety knowledge will lead to fewer worker injuries and fatalities, and ultimately a safer construction workplace.

Tool to Design for Construction Worker Safety

Improving construction worker safety continues to be a major goal in the construction industry. While significant improvements in safety performance have been made in the past few decades, one party within the project team, the designer, has not been directly involved in the safety effort. Designers have been identified as parties who have a significant influence on construction safety. The lack of designers' involvement in worker safety is attributed to their minimal education and experience in addressing safety on the construction site, and their attempt to minimize their liability exposure. In a recent study conducted by the Construction Industry Institute (CII), best practices have been accumulated that can be implemented into a project's design in order to minimize or eliminate construction site hazards. These design suggestions have been incorporated into a computer program, titled Design For Construction Safety ToolBox, that assists designers in recognizing project-specific hazards and implementing the design suggestions into a project's design. This computer program links the design and construction phases to improve construction worker safety.

Impact of human relations on the safety of construction workers

It is important for construction companies to be more considerate to their workers and pay more attention to human relations within their organizations. In fact, an effective use of human relations would improve safety programs and make safe behavior a habit for workers. A study of pipeline construction and maintenance crews in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, indicated that the safety performance of each worker was very much related to his attitude towards his fellow employees, foreman, and employer. Workers who had a good relationship with their coworkers and superiors, and had a sense of belonging to their organizations, had better safety records.

National conference on ergonomics, safety, and health in construction summary report

Decision makers from the construction industry, labor unions, government, and academia met in Washington, DC, July 18 to 22 to focus for the first time as a group on the work-related safety and health problems of construction workers. The National Conference on Ergonomics, Safety, and Health in Construction drew more than 750 participants, including experts in economics, engineering, ergonomics, industrial hygiene, insurance, public health, public policy, and occupational and rehabilitative medicine.

Shoring systems for construction load monitoring

Over the past 25 years in the US there have been more than 85 collapses of structures under construction that have been directly attributable to formwork failure. We have investigated sensing systems and techniques applicable to the monitoring of construction-site shoring and scaffolding with preliminary systems being used in the field and in the laboratory. Such a sensor network may provide significant information about the load distribution on shoring systems-information that is currently not available. This information will allow dangerous situations to be quickly identified so that corrective action can then be taken. Thus the risk of injury or loss of life at a construction site should be reduced, possibly leading to lower liability insurance costs. Furthermore, this information may also be used to formulate new construction codes that will further enhance construction work safety. Laboratory proof-of-concept experiments as well as actual field-site measurements presenting the in-service use and capabilities of an intelligent shoring system are described in this paper.

The orthostatic factor in textile workers

This report provides an overview of physical ergonomic exposures in highway construction work across trades and major operations. For each operation, the observational method “PATH” (Posture, Activity, Tools and Handling) was used to estimate the percentage of time that workers spent in specific tasks and with exposure to awkward postures and load handling. The observations were carried out on 73 different days, typically for about 4 h per day, covering 120 construction workers in 5 different trades: laborers, carpenters, ironworkers, plasterers, and tilers. Non-neutral trunk postures (forward or sideways flexion or twisting) were frequently observed, representing over 40% of observations for all trades except laborers (28%). Kneeling and squatting were common in all operations, especially tiling and underground utility relocation work. Handling loads was frequent, especially for plasterers and tilers, with a range of load weights but most often under 15 pounds. The results of this study provide quantitative evidence that workers in highway tunnel construction operations are exposed to ergonomic factors known to present significant health hazards. Numerous opportunities exist for the development and implementation of ergonomic interventions to protect the health and safety of construction workers.

Role of Designers in Construction Worker Safety

In the development of a project, a significant role is played initially by the designer of the project and then by the constructor of the project. Construction worker safety has often been regarded the sole responsibility of the construction contractor. Despite the obvious reasons for placing the primary responsibility on the contractor, the safety performance on a project may well be dictated to a large extent by decisions made by the designer. To investigate this issue of whether designers were sensitive to the safety of construction workers, a survey of major U.S. design firms was conducted assessing the extent to which design decisions are made with specific consideration being given to the safety of construction workers. Of the respondents, only one‐third stated that they made design decisions with the specific intent of improving safety conditions for construction workers. Specific illustrations of such design decisions are given in the paper. The fear of increased litigation is the biggest deterrent to addressing construction worker safety in design decisions. A rationale is developed in the paper for supporting the thesis that designers should consider worker safety in their designs. Suggestions are offered on how construction worker safety might be addressed by more designers.

Cooperation and Conflict in Occupational Safety and Health: A Multination Study of the Automotive Industry

Introduction Worker Safety and Health in the United States Worker Safety and Health in the U.S. Auto Industry Occupational Safety and Health in Five Countries National Work Injury Statistics and Their Economic/Socio-Political Construction Worker Safety and Health in Company X Worker Safety and Health in Company Y Worker Safety and Health in Company Z Conclusions/Recommendations Bibliography Index