Construction Safety Risk Mitigation

TLDR

Construction safety and health management has improved since the 1970 OSHA Act, yet the informal selection of safety program elements remains a challenge. The study aims to quantify the relative effectiveness of individual safety program elements in mitigating construction safety and health risks. The authors developed a safety risk classification system, identified effective elements from literature, and quantified each element’s mitigation ability for each risk class using a Delphi method. The study found that upper management support and commitment, along with strategic subcontractor selection and management, are the most effective elements, while recordkeeping, accident analyses, and emergency response planning are least effective, and the data can guide strategic selection and resource allocation.

Abstract

Construction safety and health management has improved significantly following the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. In response to this legislation, contractors began implementing safety programs to reduce occupational safety and health hazards on construction sites. Researchers recently found that the current process of selecting specific elements for a safety program is informal. This paper describes the results of a recent study designed to determine the relative effectiveness of safety program elements by quantifying their individual ability to mitigate construction safety and health risks. In order to determine the effectiveness of individual safety program elements, the following research activities were performed: (1) an appropriate safety risk classification system was created using an aggregation of relevant literature; (2) highly effective safety program elements were identified in literature; and (3) the ability of each safety program element to mitigate a portion of each of the safety risk classes was quantified using the Delphi method. The results of the research indicate that the most effective safety program elements are upper management support and commitment and strategic subcontractor selection and management and the least effective elements are recordkeeping and accident analyses and emergency response planning. It is expected that the data presented in this paper can be used to strategically select elements for a safety program, target specific safety and health risks, and influence resource allocation when funds are limited.