Dumrak, J; Mostafa, S; Kamardeen, I and Rameezdeen, R (2013) Factors associated with the severity of construction accidents: The case of South Australia. Construction Economics and Building, 13(4), pp. 32-49. ISSN 2204-9029
Abstract
While the causes of accidents in the construction industry have been extensively studied, severity remains an underexplored area. In order to provide more evidence for the currently limited number of empirical investigations on severity, this study analysed 24,764 construction accidents reported during 2002-11 in South Australia. A conceptual model developed through literature used personal characteristics such as age, experience, gender and language background. It also employed work-related factors such as size of organization, project size and location, mechanism of accident and body location of the injury. These facilitated demonstrating why some accidents result in only a minor severity while others are fatal. Factors such as time of accident, day of the week and season were not strongly associated with accident severities. When the factors affect the severity of accidents are well understood, high risk factors can be singled out and specific preventive measures could be developed.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | accidents; construction; safety; severity; South Australia |
| Index terms: | South Australia, construction industry, risk factor, construction accident, injury, evidence, investigation |
| Subjects: | evaluation and assessment methods, data collection methods, physical geography and landforms, environmental hazards, industry analysis, health conditions and diseases, occupational health and safety management |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Health and Safety, Geographical Context, Research Practice |
| 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