Factors associated with the severity of construction accidents: The case of South Australia

Abstract

While the causes of accidents in the construction industry have been extensively studied, severity remains an underexplored area. In order to provide more evidence for the currently limited number of empirical investigations on severity, this study analysed 24,764 construction accidents reported during 2002-11 in South Australia. A conceptual model developed through literature used personal characteristics such as age, experience, gender and language background. It also employed work-related factors such as size of organization, project size and location, mechanism of accident and body location of the injury. These facilitated demonstrating why some accidents result in only a minor severity while others are fatal. Factors such as time of accident, day of the week and season were not strongly associated with accident severities. When the factors affect the severity of accidents are well understood, high risk factors can be singled out and specific preventive measures could be developed.