Blended Analysis of Occupational Safety Hazards and Risk Assessment Approach in the Construction Industry

Abstract

Occupational safety hazards and risk management in construction industry are major worldwide concerns due to its unique dynamic nature of the working environment. Industry injury reports contain valuable information to support the risk control and prevention programs. Systematic analysis of the risk factors on cause-and effect relationship and safety attributes of the incident injury reports can make significant contributions to the construction industry and is an ideal approach for the occupational performance and risk evaluation. A blended analysis of the occupational injuries is proposed by using an attribute-based risk assessment model together with degree of risk assessment to determine the level of injury and magnitude of safety. To enhance the current quantification method, this study quantified risk attributes associated with frequency of exposure, incident probability and potential consequence. Incident injury cases are first collected from a large number of construction-related injury reports and then classified according to the pre-assigned categorized risk factors and a list of relative safety attributes based on the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) procedures and other safety standards. The availability, quality and reliability of the data will also be assessed. Data mining-based analysis is then conducted following the attribute-based risk assessment to further reveal the associations, visualization, and correlation coefficient of risky activities and constructional hazards. The blended analysis is expected to help the construction industry identify relationships on causes of safety hazards, key safety attributes and ergonomic characteristics, as well as the level of injury and their corresponding risk controls and preventions.