This reviewed “scientifically significant” construction research to highlight the findings related to safety & risk within the industry. 326 scientific journals were included and divided under 11 categories. WAY too much to cover, so I’ll cover a few findings. Results: For accidents, falls represent the main fatal accident risk, with shocks, crushing or hit by… Continue reading Occupational safety in the construction industry

I haven’t really summarised this one fully, but I found some of its findings pretty interesting. Authors note that the vast majority of existing psychological safety literature “focuses on psychological safety’s beneficial impacts such as increased speaking up or learning behaviour”, and thus, “many team leaders may consider increasing psychological safety within their teams” (p26).… Continue reading To Get Vaccinated or Not? Psychological Safety as a Catalyst for the Alignment Between Individual Beliefs and Behavior

This is one of several awesome studies from these researchers (Dillon, Tinsley et al.) looking at how near misses influence decision making. It’s often stated that near miss reporting is an important facet of learning – but this body of research suggests that near misses can actually increase a company’s propensity for danger. Authors differentiate… Continue reading How Near-Misses Influence Decision Making Under Risk: A Missed Opportunity for Learning

This explored the contributing factors to crane safety incidents in the Australian construction industry based on interviews & focus groups with 62 industry participants (crane manufacturers, maintenance specialists, riggers, crane operators etc). One aspect this paper tried to move beyond were simple attributions of human error or behavioural causes as it’s argued that many of… Continue reading A qualitative analysis of crane safety incident causation in the Australian construction industry

This compared the safety practices between 18001 certified and non-certified companies, respectively. I usually struggle with research focusing on safety culture, given how poorly defined and vacuous it often is. However, if you gloss over the SC stuff then the rest of the findings are pretty interesting. Six manufacturing companies were included in the study… Continue reading Diagnosis of poor safety culture as a major shortcoming in OHSAS 18001-certified companies

This study assessed factors affecting underreporting by studying the incidence of the factors on projects with perceived good and bad recordkeeping. This was based on completed US construction projects. Perceived good and bad recordkeeping was based on the assessment from experienced health and safety professionals who were “doubtful that the project is reporting safety incidents… Continue reading Assessment of underreporting factors on construction safety incidents in US construction projects

This analysed 21 fatal occupational accidents in oil & gas relating to confined spaces using the HFACS (Human Factors Analysis & Classification System). They also conducted 33 semi-structured interviews to explore their experiences with the contributory factors identified with HFACS. One motive of this study is that accident analysis tools & practitioners may not adequately… Continue reading Exploring the Contributory Factors of Confined Space Accidents Using Accident Investigation Reports and Semi-structured Interviews

This explored the relationship between workers’ safety climate perceptions and safety management practices (SMPs), arguing that SC may be a parallel outcome of workplace safety practices rather than as a determinant of worker behaviour. 25 commercial construction companies in Colombia were assessed, alongside 256 individuals within the companies. SMPs included 15 safety practices (eg training,… Continue reading Associations between safety climate and safety management practices in the construction industry

This studied the relationship of insomnia on suicide risk by considering both sleep duration & depression. The study was based on a Swedish prospective cohort of >38k participants with a mean follow-up time of 19 years. Sleep disturbances have been identified in previous work as an early & important marker for suicidal behaviour and insomnia… Continue reading Insomnia in the context of short sleep increases suicide risk

This review paper looked at available evidence and sought to discuss the following questions: how skilled are craft workers at identifying hazards, what hazards are most commonly identified and missed, what is happening in the brain as different types of hazards are recognized, and what types of techniques have been demonstrated to improve hazard recognition.… Continue reading Construction Hazard Recognition: Themes in Scientific Research