Predicting Safety Risk of Working at Heights Using Bayesian Networks

AbstractAlthough the construction industry has shown significant improvements in safety performance over the past 30 years, falls are still a leading cause of fatalities and serious injuries. Previous studies have focused on identifying factors affecting the risk of falls, but remained silent on investigating the evidential relationships among these factors to better prevent fall accidents. This research proposes a Bayesian network (BN) based approach to diagnose the accident risk of working at heights. The proposed approach consists of a conceptual and generic model with a protocol for assessing the risk of falls and a computational module. The generic BN model was developed on the basis of an extensive review and evaluation of causal factors leading to falls. The computational module was developed on the basis of Bayes’ rule for inference to customize model input and job site characteristics. The results of the proposed approach provide probabilities associated with different states of safety risk. Addi...

[1]  David Heckerman,et al.  Bayesian Networks for Data Mining , 2004, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery.

[2]  Zdzislaw Pawlak,et al.  Rough Set Theory , 2008, Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering.

[3]  Xiuwen Sue Dong,et al.  Fatal falls among Hispanic construction workers. , 2009, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[4]  Daniel W. Halpin,et al.  Predictive Tool for Estimating Accident Risk , 2003 .

[5]  Charles Levenstein,et al.  Occupational injury and illness surveillance: conceptual filters explain underreporting. , 2002, American journal of public health.

[6]  Amr A. G. Hassanein,et al.  Safety Performance in the Egyptian Construction Industry , 2008 .

[7]  Laura Uusitalo,et al.  Advantages and challenges of Bayesian networks in environmental modelling , 2007 .

[8]  Daniel Tran,et al.  An efficient search strategy for aggregation and discretization of attributes of bayesian networks using minimum description length , 2013 .

[9]  Thomas Gordon Bobick.  Falls through Roof and Floor Openings and Surfaces, Including Skylights: 1992¿2000 , 2004 .

[10]  Michael P. Wellman,et al.  Real-world applications of Bayesian networks , 1995, CACM.

[11]  Chin-Feng Fan,et al.  BBN-based software project risk management , 2004, J. Syst. Softw..

[12]  A. Roy Duff,et al.  Development of Causal Model of Construction Accident Causation , 2001 .

[13]  Osama Abudayyeh,et al.  Analysis of Occupational Injuries and Fatalities in Electrical Contracting Industry , 2003 .

[14]  Finn Verner Jensen,et al.  Bayesian Networks and Influence Diagrams , 1997 .

[15]  Mani Golparvar-Fard,et al.  Enhancing construction hazard recognition with high-fidelity augmented virtuality , 2014 .

[16]  John Gambatese,et al.  The trajectories of Prevention through Design in construction. , 2008, Journal of safety research.

[17]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Analysis of Construction Worker Fall Accidents , 2003 .

[18]  Chia-Wen Liao,et al.  Data mining for occupational injuries in the Taiwan construction industry , 2008 .

[19]  Saakje Mulder,et al.  Incidence and costs of injuries in The Netherlands. , 2006, European journal of public health.

[20]  Mehmet Emre Bayraktar,et al.  Bayesian Belief Network Model for Decision Making in Highway Maintenance: Case Studies , 2009 .

[21]  Charles M. Eastman,et al.  Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Safety: Automatic Safety Checking of Construction Models and Schedules , 2013 .

[22]  Thomas K. L. Tong,et al.  Rough set theory for distilling construction safety measures , 2006 .

[23]  John G. Everett.  Overexertion Injuries in Construction , 1999 .

[24]  Robert G. Sargent,et al.  Verification and validation of simulation models , 2013, Proceedings of Winter Simulation Conference.

[25]  Richard D. Hislop.  Construction Site Safety: A Guide for Managing Contractors , 1999 .

[26]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Moving toward a Zero Injury Objective , 2000 .

[27]  Kevin P. Murphy,et al.  An introduction to graphical models , 2011 .

[28]  Rita Yi Man Li.  Workers’ Compensation for Non-fatal Accidents on Non-fatal Accidents: Review of Hong Kong Court Cases , 2009 .

[29]  Ann Marie Dale,et al.  Fall prevention and safety communication training for foremen: report of a pilot project designed to improve residential construction safety. , 2013, Journal of safety research.

[30]  Tariq S. Abdelhamid,et al.  Identifying Root Causes of Construction Accidents , 2001 .

[31]  Brenda McCabe,et al.  Evaluating Risk in Construction–Schedule Model (ERIC–S): Construction Schedule Risk Model , 2003 .

[32]  Miroslaw J. Skibniewski,et al.  Bayesian-network-based safety risk analysis in construction projects , 2014, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[33]  Dong-Chul Seo,et al.  Comparison of risk factors for falls from height between commercial and residential roofers. , 2009, Journal of safety research.

[34]  Kun Hu,et al.  Factors influencing the risk of falls in the construction industry: a review of the evidence , 2011 .

[35]  Hester J. Lipscomb,et al.  Non-fatal construction industry fall-related injuries treated in US emergency departments, 1998-2005. , 2011, American journal of industrial medicine.

[36]  Stuart D. Anderson,et al.  Strategies for Achieving Excellence in Construction Safety Performance , 1996 .

[37]  Dulcy M. Abraham,et al.  Fatalities in Trenching Operations—Analysis Using Models of Accident Causation , 2004 .

[38]  Daniel W. Halpin,et al.  Quantifying effects of accidents by fuzzy-logic- and simulation-based analysis , 2006 .

[39]  Laura S Welch,et al.  Is the Apparent Decrease in Injury and Illness Rates in Construction the Result of Changes in Reporting? , 2007, International journal of occupational and environmental health.

[40]  Sou-Sen Leu,et al.  Bayesian-network-based safety risk assessment for steel construction projects. , 2013, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[41]  Young-Jun Kwon,et al.  The characteristics of fatal occupational injuries in Korea’s construction industry, 1997–2004 , 2009 .

[42]  Liping Li,et al.  Trends in injury-related incidence and mortality among inpatients in Guangdong Province in 1997-2001. , 2004, Biomedical and environmental sciences : BES.

[43]  James G. Borchardt,et al.  Fatal falls from roofs among U.S. construction workers. , 2013, Journal of safety research.

[44]  Judea Pearl,et al.  Probabilistic reasoning in intelligent systems - networks of plausible inference , 1991, Morgan Kaufmann series in representation and reasoning.

[45]  Stephen O. Ogunlana,et al.  Quantifying schedule risk in construction projects using Bayesian belief networks , 2009 .

[46]  Abdollah Abdi,et al.  Project cost risk analysis: A Bayesian networks approach for modeling dependencies between cost items , 2014 .

[47]  Ted Miller,et al.  Costs of occupational injuries in construction in the United States. , 2007, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[48]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Construction worker fatalities related to trusses: an analysis of the OSHA fatality and catastrophic incident database , 2014 .

[49]  Albert P.C. Chan,et al.  Work at Height Fatalities in the Repair, Maintenance, Alteration, and Addition Works , 2008 .

[50]  Ping Yung,et al.  Institutional arrangements and construction safety in China: an empirical examination , 2009 .

[51]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Proactive Construction Safety Control: Measuring, Monitoring, and Responding to Safety Leading Indicators , 2013 .

[52]  Arieh Gavious,et al.  The costs of industrial accidents for the organization: Developing methods and tools for evaluation and cost–benefit analysis of investment in safety , 2009 .

[53]  Finn Verner Jensen,et al.  Introduction to Bayesian Networks , 2008, Innovations in Bayesian Networks.

[54]  Chia-Fen Chi,et al.  Accident patterns and prevention measures for fatal occupational falls in the construction industry. , 2005, Applied ergonomics.

[55]  Sathyanarayanan Rajendran,et al.  Design’s role in construction accident causality and prevention: Perspectives from an expert panel , 2008 .

[56]  Sou-Sen Leu,et al.  Fall Risk Assessment of Cantilever Bridge Projects Using Bayesian Network , 2014 .

[57]  Simaan M. AbouRizk,et al.  BELIEF NETWORKS FOR CONSTRUCTION PERFORMANCE DIAGNOSTICS , 1998 .