A Content Analysis on Static Digital Information About the Causes of Construction Accidents

Abstract

In many places, construction accident rates are high. While construction companies incur a huge sum of money for compensation in accidents, the injured workers suffer from loss of income and even capacity to work. As implementation of construction safety measures and relevant regulations require the knowledge of construction accident causes, this research study aims at reviewing the digital information available in academic journal database about construction accidents with the help of information technology tools. The research results show that (1) many of the journal articles shed light on developed countries, with the majority come from Europe and the US. (2) Heaps of research analyses the statistics from official database or report as their method of research studies, followed by questionnaires/survey or interview. Triangulation, i.e. more than one research method, is seldom used in these journal articles. (3) Science Direct and ASCE library contain more journal articles which are related to causes of construction accidents than the other databases. (4) Lots of them concede that accidents is more likely to happen because of the immediate causes of accidents, such as fall, slip and struck by objects, and the workers' characteristics.