Hazard Recognition Patterns Demonstrated by Construction Workers

Abstract

Construction workers fail to recognize a large number of safety hazards. These unrecognized safety hazards can lead to unintended hazard exposure and tragic safety incidents. Unfortunately, traditional hazard recognition interventions (e.g., job hazard analyses and safety training) have been unable to tackle the industry-wide problem of poor hazard recognition levels. In fact, emerging evidence has demonstrated that traditional hazard recognition interventions have been designed without a proper understanding of the challenges workers experience during hazard recognition efforts. Interventions and industry-wide efforts designed based on a more thorough understanding of these challenges can yield substantial benefits—including superior hazard recognition levels and lower injury rates. Towards achieving this goal, the current investigation focused on identifying hazard categories that workers are more proficient in recognizing and others that they are less proficient in recognizing (i.e., hazard recognition patterns). For the purpose of the current study, hazards were classified on the basis of the energy source per Haddon’s energy release theory (e.g., gravity, motion, electrical, chemical, etc.). As part of the study, 287 workers representing 57 construction workplaces in the United States were engaged in a hazard recognition activity. Apart from confirming previous research findings that workers fail to recognize a disproportionate number of safety hazards, the results demonstrate that the workers are more proficient in recognizing certain hazard types. More specifically, the workers on average recognized roughly 47% of the safety hazards in the gravity, electrical, motion, and temperature hazard categories while only recognizing less than 10% of the hazards in the pressure, chemical, and radiation hazard categories. These findings can inform the development of more robust interventions and industry-wide initiatives to tackle the issue of poor hazard recognition levels in the construction industry.

Leveraging ChatGPT to Aid Construction Hazard Recognition and Support Safety Education and Training

“…Likewise, estimates from Australia suggest that up to 57% of safety hazards can possibly remain unrecognized [22]. Similar patterns of poor hazard recognition have been highlighted in construction workplaces across nations and geographical regions [16,18,22,23,43].…”

“…Unfortunately, evidence suggests that poor hazard recognition levels are a widespread and persistent problem in construction workplaces [15,16]. In fact, evidence suggests that over 40% of safety hazards may remain unrecognized in typical construction workplaces [17,[20][21][22][23]. Moreover, past research has demonstrated that all construction industry stakeholders-whether workers, engineers, managers, or superintendents-lack effective hazard recognition skills [16,24,25].…”

Safety Program Elements in the Construction Industry: The Case of Iraq

“…It is proven that safety performance in the construction sector can be improved by providing effective safety training [ 16 , 66 ]. Due to the dynamic nature of construction work environments, it is important to provide regular training [ 67 , 68 ] so that employees are aware of the changing environments and associated risks. This is important because increased safety awareness, knowledge and skills lead to the successful and effective implementation of the safety program [ 69 ].…”

Occupational accidents in Malta and the role of the occupational health and safety authority: A twenty-year analysis

“…Studies suggest that workers and organisations value information and feedback from inspectors (Niskanen et al, 2014;Umeokafor et al, 2022). Furthermore, studies have shown that workers fail to recognise many hazards (Uddin et al, 2020), while a lack of knowledge is a barrier to implementing effective safety management (Buniya et al, 2021). Studies on such OHS campaigns are rather limited and often relate to very specific topics.…”