Oguz Erkal, E D; Hallowell, M R and Bhandari, S (2021) Practical assessment of potential predictors of serious injuries and fatalities in construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 147(10): 04021129, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Serious injuries and fatalities (SIF) continue to be an enigmatic problem in the construction industry. Researchers have begun to explore new ways of preventing these incidents by developing and testing leading indicators, precursor analysis, and risk assessment supported by data analytics. These recent themes suggest a new paradigm in safety prediction. Aligned with this trajectory, the objectives of this study were to (1) identify a comprehensive list of potential predictors of SIFs in construction, including business factors, project characteristics, and crew demographics; (2) quantitatively prioritize potential predictors; and (3) develop a rank-ordered list of factors that could be tested for predictive validity and practically deployed on site. An expert panel of 22 industry practitioners generated 254 potential predictors of construction SIFs through structured brainstorming. To prioritize these potential predictors, the expert panel rated the extent to which each is measurable, predictive, simple, and actionable. Finally, a weighted sum method and a maximin approach was used to identify the predictors with the greatest practical potential for predicting SIF events, including brand-new concepts that have not yet been considered in the associated safety literature. Most previous research has focused on one specific form of safety prediction at a time (e.g., leading indicators), whereas this research effort is a first step toward a unified model with high feasibility and practical relevance.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction safety; fatality prediction; predictive factors; safety management |
| Index terms: | construction industry, testing, fatalities, demographics, paradigm, risk assessment, validity, construction safety, safety management, practitioner, injury |
| Subjects: | occupational health and safety management, demography, health conditions and diseases, industry analysis, environmental health, health risk and incident analysis, education and knowledge transfer, financial risk, professional practice, evaluation and assessment methods, practitioner |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Roles and Professions, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Health and Safety, Cost Management, Urban Studies |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here