Safety risk assessment of building construction work items in Abuja

Abstract

Work-related injuries pose major public health and development challenges, with serious health, social, and economic consequences for workers and their employers. The study's aim is to assess the level of safety risk associated with building construction work items in Abuja. Purposive sampling technique was adopted for data collection. The mean score method was used to analyse the most hazardous work items in building construction projects, result revealed that lift installation, electrical work, roof work, and steel structure, with mean scores of 4.03, 4.00, 3.40, and 3.80, respectively were the riskiest work items. The risk prioritization number were used to analyse safety risk assessment, result revealed that the highest medium risk level was installation of electrical work, roof work, and installation of lift, with average risk scores of 11.48, 11.01, and 10.74, respectively. It was concluded that most building construction activities in Abuja are deemed to be of medium risk; nonetheless, employees are still at risk of injury and accidents on sites that are tolerable. It is recommended that all construction safety plans include an acceptable risk assessment technique, with proper risk identification and prioritization being a requirement for effective risk management and control. It is expected that stakeholder understanding of the construction sector will extend in terms of identifying work items with high or low severity or frequency of risk, hence improving construction safety.