Health Behaviours in Scaffold Use Risk Assessment Model – SURAM

Abstract

Introduction. Problems concerning occupational safety and health are commonly found in the construction industry, including falling materials, tools or people from a height, stepping on objects, and injuries caused by hand tools. An important factor in occupational safety in the construction industry is the use of scaffolds. All scaffolds used in construction, renovation, repair (including isolating, painting and decorating) and demolition, should be erected, maintained and dismantledin accordance with safety procedures. Therefore, it is crucial to deal with the safety of scaffolds and risk assessment in the construction industry; thus, the way of undertaking the assessment and the liability of assessment seems to be essential for professionals. However, it has been found that those professionals are prone to rely heavily on their own experience and knowledge in decision-making regarding risk assessment. Materials and method. The Scaffold Use Risk Assessment Model (SURAM) has been developed for assessing risk levels at various stages of the construction process in various work trades. The SURAM is the result of a research project carried out at 60 construction sites in Poland and Portugal where 504 observations have been completed including both harmful physical and chemical factors, stress level, workers' habits, as well as a hundreds ex-post reconstruction of construction accidents scenarios. Results. It was found that the workers' Health Behaviour Index (HBI) seems to be a more direct predictor for development of the unsafe chain of events leading to an accident than the workload, and concentration of harmful factors at the workplace. Conclusions. The developed HBI module of SURAM seems to be beneficial for predicting high-risk construction activities, and thus preventing the occurrence of accidents, based on a set of historical accident data.

Willingness to Accept Human Papillomavirus Vaccination and its Influencing Factors Using Information–Motivation–Behavior Skills Model: A Cross-Sectional Study of Female College Freshmen in Mainland China

“…On the contrary, people tend to rely heavily on their own or experience and knowledge from those close to them to make health decisions. 36 When a person realizes the health benefits of the vaccine, even though she may have only heard of the HPV vaccine, she will actively search for information about the HPV vaccine and consult professionals about making an appointment for vaccination. This scenario suggests a possible way of guiding health interventions to improve HPV vaccination among female freshmen, and the benefit of receiving the HPV vaccination should be specially addressed, rather than focusing only on HPV-related knowledge.…”

Impact of Alcohol on Occupational Health and Safety in the Construction Industry at Workplaces with Scaffoldings

“…The survey data were collected from January 2016 to December 2018 during the on-going research project called "Model of the assessment of risk of the occurrence of building catastrophes, accidents and dangerous events at workplaces with the use of scaffolding" ("ORKWIZ"). The surveys and questionnaires were prepared by a team from the Lublin University of Technology, under the leadership of K. Czarnocki [57]. From 1500 people working on the examined 120 construction sites (during the testing of 120 scaffoldings), 573 employees took part in the study (573 surveys were carried out among people working at the construction site of the examined scaffoldings).…”

Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences

“…[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]) as part of the studies during one working week: scaffolding inventories (including detailed geodesic measurements), damage inventories, service load inventories, wind action measurements, free vibration measurements, measurements of the scaffoldings vibration resulting from the operation of construction machines, measurements of forces in supports, bearing capacity studies, the load-bearing capacity of anchors, measurements of temperature, pressure, sound pressure levels, lighting, as well as surveys on general information regarding scaffolding and its users, an analysis of the compliance with health and safety regulations, a construction site organisation analysis, scaffolding user surveys, measurements of the user's energy expenditure and changes in their other physiological parameters when working on a scaffolding. On the basis of the results of the studies a potential accident risk assessment model was constructed, the elements of which were described in [25][26][27]30,31]. The results of measurements of service loads were used in the aforementioned model to assess the probability of a scaffolding failure during one working week at the maximum load determined during the measurements.…”