Knowledge discovery of correlations between unsafe behaviors within construction accidents
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 30 April 2021
Issue publication date: 8 April 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Knowledge discovery related to unsafe behaviors promotes the performance of accident prevention in construction. Although numerous studies on accident causation models have discussed the correlations of unsafe behaviors with various factors (e.g., unsafe conditions), limited research explores correlations between unsafe behaviors within accidents. The purpose of this paper is mining strong association rules of unsafe behaviors from historical accidents to clarify this kind of tacit knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study was adopted as the research approach, in which accident records from building and urban railway construction in China were selected as data resources. The groups of unsafe behaviors extracted from accident records were expressed by the definitions of unsafe behaviors from safety regulations and operating procedures. Frequent Pattern (FP)-Growth algorithm was used for association rule mining, and the critical correlations between unsafe behaviors were represented by the effective strong rules.
Findings
The findings identify and distinguish correlations between unsafe behaviors within construction accidents. In building construction, workers and managers should pay attention to preventing unsafe behaviors related to personal protective equipment and machines and equipment. In urban railway construction, workers should especially avoid unsafe behaviors of inadequately dealing with environmental factors.
Practical implications
Tacit knowledge is transferred to explicit knowledge as the critical correlations between unsafe behaviors within accidents are determined by the effective strong rules. Additionally, the findings provide practice guidance for safety management, to collaboratively control unsafe behaviors with strong correlations.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the body of safety knowledge in construction and provides a further understanding of how construction accidents are caused by multiple unsafe behaviors.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Data availability Statement: Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. (List items).This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 71801197]; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) [grant number CUGESIW1801]. The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Citation
Guo, S., Zhao, Y., Luoren, Y., Liang, K. and Tang, B. (2022), "Knowledge discovery of correlations between unsafe behaviors within construction accidents", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 1797-1816. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-09-2020-0745
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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