Relationships among Language Proficiency, Communication Patterns, and Safety Performance in Small Work Crews in the United States

AbstractThe construction industry employs approximately 6% of all U.S. workers but accounts for over 16% of all occupational fatalities. Recent statistics indicate that over 40% of all U.S. construction laborers cannot speak English proficiently. To ensure strong safety performance, it is vital to include every individual in a construction crew in safety-related communications, regardless of language proficiency. Considering that most safety communication is delivered in English, it is not surprising that Spanish-speaking construction workers are fatally injured at a disproportionate rate. To conduct the first exploration of the characteristics of strong, multilingual safety networks in the Denver Metropolitan region of the United States, a multilingual research team conducted interviews with the members of 14 construction crews. Demographic attribute data for each individual (e.g., language proficiency, years of experience, position in the company) and network data were collected to analyze the safety co...

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