Ghosh, S; Nourihemadani, M and Reyes, M (2025) Effect of previous accidents and near-miss incidents on risk perceptions of construction workers. International Journal of Construction Education and Research, 21(2), pp. 213-229. ISSN 1557-8771
Abstract
The construction industry suffers from a high number of occupational fatalities and injuries, despite ongoing efforts by practitioners and researchers to improve. Overall, the safety improvement approaches in the industry have been reactive with reliance on historical data. Recently, the focus of safety improvement has shifted to being proactive using leading indicators such as risk perception and safety control. The leading indicators are perception-based and limited empirical investigation has been conducted on the impact of previous accidents on the safety perceptions of the construction workers. This quantitative study used survey questionnaires to collect data from workers of multiple healthcare projects in the Southwestern region of the US. The survey questionnaires were developed based on existing instruments and gathered data was analyzed to test hypotheses related to the impact of previous incident experience on the safety perceptions of the construction workers. Analyses revealed a significant correlation between previous incident experience and workers' perception of safety risk. The study did not find a significant association between workers' previous incident experience and their perception of safety control. This suggests that workers' perception of their capability to control safety risks may not be significantly influenced by their past experiences of accidents or near-miss incidents.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction safety; near-miss incidents; protection motivation theory; safety control; safety risk perception; questionnaire survey |
| Index terms: | investigation, construction industry, construction worker, fatalities, injury, risk perception, survey, motivation, practitioner, questionnaire, construction safety |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, health risk and incident analysis, environmental health, industry analysis, health conditions and diseases, practitioner, psychology, environmental hazards |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Sustainability, Human Resources, Research Practice, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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