Accident precursors and near misses on construction sites: An investigative tool to derive information from accident databases

Abstract Safety problems on construction sites seem to be largely unresolved as the fatality and injury records in construction continue to plague the industry across the world. The lack of an effective system to interrupt and prevent the precursors and contributory factors on construction sites is argued to be the critical deficiency of extant research and practice. This paper covers research to develop a systematic mechanism to interrupt and prevent precursors and immediate factors (PaIFs) on construction sites. First, the importance of precursors and near misses to further improve safety margins are emphasized. Furthermore, a systematic model of improving safety on construction sites is presented to consummate and perfect extant safety-improving systems on construction sites by reinforcing and accentuating the real-time tracking of precursors and immediate factors. The real-time tracking sub-system is argued to be an effective measure to interrupt and prevent PaIFs. Eventually, an investigative model of PaIFs on construction sites is proposed, indicating how to seek PaIFs from historical accident records and how to obtain near misses and mitigating measures from reported events. Results indicate that model of PaIFs is effective and able to acquire as much information as possible about precursors and near misses and thus, in part, overcome the deficiency of lacking sufficient and adequate historical accident records. This study proposes a feasible approach to facilitate acquiring more useful information from historical records of accidents in order to improve safety on construction sites and serve as a foundation for further study by drawing researchers’ attention to precursors and near misses.

[1]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Viability of Designing for Construction Worker Safety , 2005 .

[2]  A. Viera,et al.  Understanding interobserver agreement: the kappa statistic. , 2005, Family medicine.

[3]  Dongping Fang,et al.  Factor analysis-based studies on construction workplace safety management in China , 2004 .

[4]  John A. Gambatese,et al.  Can Design Improve Construction Safety?: Assessing the Impact of a Collaborative Safety-in-Design Process , 2005 .

[5]  O. Kolton,et al.  Model for Automated Monitoring of Fall Hazards in Building Construction , 2006 .

[6]  Tony Baxendale,et al.  Construction design and management safety regulations in practice—progress on implementation , 2000 .

[7]  A. Feinstein,et al.  High agreement but low kappa: I. The problems of two paradoxes. , 1990, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[8]  J. E. Beavers,et al.  Steel Erection Fatalities in the Construction Industry , 2009 .

[9]  Emmanuel Manatakis,et al.  Towards an evaluation of accident investigation methods in terms of their alignment with accident causation models , 2009 .

[10]  Carlos T. Formoso,et al.  Identification, analysis and dissemination of information on near misses: A case study in the construction industry , 2010 .

[11]  Lars Harms-Ringdahl,et al.  Analysis of safety functions and barriers in accidents , 2009 .

[12]  Gerardo Cupido,et al.  The role of production and teamwork practices in construction safety: a cognitive model and an empirical case study. , 2009, Journal of safety research.

[13]  Andrew Hale,et al.  Quantified risk assessment for fall from height , 2008 .

[14]  H. Kundel,et al.  Measurement of observer agreement. , 2003, Radiology.

[15]  Chi Ming Tam,et al.  Safety cultural divergences among management, supervisory and worker groups in Hong Kong construction industry , 2005 .

[16]  Sherif Ali Mohtady Mohamed,et al.  SAFETY CLIMATE IN CONSTRUCTION SITE ENVIRONMENTS , 2002 .

[17]  Marc N. Elliott,et al.  Using Pooled Kappa to Summarize Interrater Agreement across Many Items , 2008 .

[18]  Vicki M. Bier,et al.  Accident Precursor Analysis and Management: Reducing Technological Risk Through Diligence , 2004 .

[19]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  Analysis of fatalities and injuries due to powerline contacts , 1996 .

[20]  Aviad Shapira,et al.  AHP-Based Weighting of Factors Affecting Safety on Construction Sites with Tower Cranes , 2009 .

[21]  Lia Buarque de Macedo Guimarães,et al.  Ergonomic assessment of suspended scaffolds , 2006 .

[22]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  A new accident model for engineering safer systems , 2004 .

[23]  A R Duff,et al.  Contributing factors in construction accidents. , 2005, Applied ergonomics.

[24]  Jimmie Hinze,et al.  The Nature of Struck-by Accidents , 2005 .

[25]  Chia-Fen Chi,et al.  In-depth accident analysis of electrical fatalities in the construction industry , 2009 .

[26]  George L. Germain,et al.  Practical loss control leadership , 1996 .

[27]  Simon Smith,et al.  Safety hazard identification on construction projects , 2006 .

[28]  Lisa M Morrison,et al.  Best practices in incident investigation in the chemical process industries with examples from the industry sector and specifically from Nova Chemicals. , 2004, Journal of hazardous materials.

[29]  J. Hovden,et al.  Is there a need for new theories, models and approaches to occupational accident prevention? , 2010 .

[30]  Carlos T. Formoso,et al.  An analysis of construction safety best practices from a cognitive systems engineering perspective , 2008 .

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

[32]  Florence Yean Yng Ling,et al.  Framework for project managers to manage construction safety , 2005 .

[33]  Alistair G.F. Gibb,et al.  Towards an autonomous real-time tracking system of near-miss accidents on construction sites , 2010 .

[34]  Lia Buarque de Macedo Guimarães,et al.  A method for assessing health and safety management systems from the resilience engineering perspective , 2009 .

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

[36]  J. Fleiss,et al.  Statistical methods for rates and proportions , 1973 .

[37]  Andrew Hopkins,et al.  What are we to make of safe behaviour programs , 2006 .

[38]  Daniel Fong,et al.  Factors affecting safety performance on construction sites , 1999 .

[39]  Theo Haupt.  A STUDY OF MANAGEMENT ATTITUDES TO A PERFORMANCE APPROACH TO CONSTRUCTION WORKER SAFETY , 2003 .

[40]  Tarek Hegazy,et al.  DYNAMIC LAYOUT OF CONSTRUCTION TEMPORARY FACILITIES CONSIDERING SAFETY , 2004 .

[41]  John A. Gambatese.  Safety in a Designer's Hands , 2000 .

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

[43]  H. W. Heinrich.  Industrial Accident Prevention , 1941 .

[44]  Jason R. W. Merrick,et al.  Leading Indicators of Safety in Virtual Organizations , 2007 .

[45]  Thanwadee Chinda,et al.  Structural equation model of construction safety culture , 2008 .

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

[47]  Nabil Kartam,et al.  Integrating Safety and Health Performance into Construction CPM , 1997 .

[48]  Alistair G.F. Gibb,et al.  What causes accidents , 2006 .

[49]  A. Feinstein,et al.  High agreement but low kappa: II. Resolving the paradoxes. , 1990, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[50]  Dongping Fang,et al.  Safety Climate in Construction Industry: A Case Study in Hong Kong , 2006 .

[51]  Simon Jones,et al.  The importance of near miss reporting to further improve safety performance , 1999 .

[52]  T. Michael Toole,et al.  Construction Site Safety Roles , 2002 .