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This paper presents tools and equipment aspects of the results from a three‐year United Kingdom Government funded research project investigating accident causality (ConCA). The project has used focus groups and studied in detail 100 construction accidents site audits, interviews with involved persons and follow‐up along the causal chain. This paper concentrates on the influence of construction tools and equipment which were found to be important contributory factors identified by the research. They have largely been overlooked by previous studies and are not typically acknowledged as accident contributors. This paper argues for further work to confirm these links and for the inclusion of tools and equipment in the list of categories in statutory reporting procedures. This would also require an increased acknowledgement by construction managers of their influence, leading to better design and management of their supply and care on site.

The equability of environment, social and economic elements becomes a major issue to be achieved as to attain sustainability in the development of a construction project. As to cater to social sustainability, the Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health in Construction Industry (Management) also known as OSHCIM has been introduced by the government to improve safety practices amongst Malaysia’s construction practitioners. The basic principle adopted in OSHCIM is Prevention through Design (PtD), which enhances the elimination of hazards during project design stages. This concept is inspired from the implementation of Construction (Design and Management) (CDM) Regulations in the United Kingdom. The concept has also been adopted and practised in many developed countries including Australia and Singapore. The aim of this study is to identify the dominant accident causes in Malaysian construction industry. In this study, the secondary data were gathered from the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) accident statistics. A content analysis and frequency distribution analysis were adopted to determine causal factors that contribute to the fatality. The findings show the existence of design-related causal factors, which is also incorporated with other causes of accidents. This is true as every accident occurs due to more than one factor. Thus, these inputs will recommend further exploration to determine the design-related causal factors. This may help the industrial players, including stakeholders, practitioners and researchers, to have more focussed efforts and resources in ensuring the success of OSHCIM’s implementation to reduce the accident statistics in Malaysia.

This study aims to observe the impact of peripheral vision on construction safety. The study further intends to create awareness of eye diseases in construction safety, an important root cause for most construction-related hazards and accidents.

This study focuses on the impact of peripheral vision in terms of construction site safety. Experiments were conducted with construction employees with different qualifications, ages, expertise and previous safety training experience. The experiments were conducted with an experiment set consisting of a tangent screen to measure the peripheral angle of the participants. The study measured peripheral vision, which helped determine the vision field accordingly. In this context, a total of 32 participants were investigated in terms of their peripheral visual angle and the field of vision. The data collected were analyzed in terms of several statistical tests such as One-Sample t-test, multivariate ANOVA and multiple linear regression.

The results of the study indicated that there are significant differences in peripheral vision in terms of age of participants, work qualification, work experience, area of expertise and previous safety training experience. The study further revealed that most of the participants failed to satisfy both OSHA requirements about peripheral vision, and normal limits defined in the previous literature. The study further implies that participants, who reported previous sight problems or eye diseases are more vulnerable to construction site accidents.

Construction site safety remains a major concern for most construction companies despite the latest developments in technology. Several companies are struggling with poor safety performance, occupational injuries and illnesses, and work-related accidents resulting in fatalities. However, the root causes behind several construction accidents are still vague due to different dynamics in the construction industry. Among these root causes, poor sight, vision and or eye diseases constitute an important part. Hence, the study provides empirical evidence with the workers checked for eye health to help policymakers and industry practitioners in terms of developing awareness for eye-related injuries and accidents and review their safety programs accordingly.

The purpose of this study is to identify the causative factors of metro construction safety accidents, analyze the correlation between accidents and causative factors and assist in developing safety management strategies for improving safety performance in the context of the Chinese construction industry.

To achieve these objectives, 13 types and 48 causations were determined based on 274 construction safety accidents in China. Then, 204 cause-and-effect relationships among accidents and causations were identified based on data mining. Next, network theory was employed to develop and analyze the metro construction accident causation network (MCACN).

The topological characteristics of MCACN were obtained, it is both a small-world network and a scale-free network. Controlling critical causative factors can effectively control the occurrence of metro construction accidents. Degree centrality strategy is better than closeness centrality strategy and betweenness centrality strategy.

In practice, it is very difficult to quantitatively identify and determine the importance of different accidents and causative factors. The weights of nodes and edges are failed to be assigned when constructing MCACN.

This study provides a theoretical basis and feasible management reference for construction enterprises in China to control construction risks and reduce safety accidents. More safety resources should be allocated to control critical risks. It is recommended that safety managers implement degree centrality strategy when making safety-related decisions.

This paper establishes the MCACN model based on data mining and network theory, identifies the properties and clarifies the mechanism of metro construction accidents and causations.

The construction sector has significantly evolved in recent decades, in parallel with a huge increase in the amount of data generated and exchanged in any construction project. These data need to be managed in order to complete a successful project in terms of quality, cost and schedule in the the context of a safe project environment while appropriately organising many construction documents.

However, the origin of these data is very diverse, mainly due to the sector’s characteristics. Moreover, these data are affected by uncertainty, complexity and diversity due to the imprecise nature of the many factors involved in construction projects. As a result, construction project data are associated with large, irregular and scattered datasets.

The objective of this chapter is to introduce an approach based on a fuzzy multi-dimensional model and on line analytical processing (OLAP) operations in order to manage construction data and support the decision-making process based on previous experiences. On one hand, the proposal allows for the integration of data in a common repository which is accessible to users along the whole project’s life cycle. On the other hand, it allows for the establishment of more flexible structures for representing the data of the main tasks in the construction project management domain. The incorporation of this fuzzy framework allows for the management of imprecision in construction data and provides easy and intuitive access to users so that they can make more reliable decisions.

Decisions made during the design stage of construction works can significantly reduce the risk of occurrence of occupational accidents, injuries and illnesses. Moreover, it has been established that design is one of the major contributors of accidents and injuries. Design for safety (DfS) studies within construction have highlighted factors affecting the implementation of DfS, among which are designer attitude; DfS knowledge/awareness and education; availability of DfS tools, including guidance; client’s influence and motivation; and legislation. The purpose of this study is to carry out an in-depth literature review of DfS studies within construction to explore the extent to which existing DfS research has looked at the above-listed DfS implementation factors.

A review of 164 journal articles related to DfS in construction (published from 1990 to 2017) within built environment, engineering and multidisciplinary safety journals was undertaken.

The findings indicate that around 60 per cent of the journal articles reviewed address designer knowledge/awareness and education issues, about 27 per cent looked at DfS implementation tools to assist designers to undertake DfS, about 23 per cent studied client influence/motivation, about 16 per cent studied designers’ attitudes towards DfS implementation and approximately 16 per cent looked at the role of legislation in DfS implementation. The literature points that client influence/motivation and legislation are very influential DfS implementation factors despite a limited number of studies in these areas.

Overall, the findings provide an indication of areas of DfS implementation, particularly client influence/motivation and legislation, where more research would be needed to promote DfS in construction to help mitigate the occurrence of accidents and injuries.

The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge on the advantages of integrating safety earlier in the construction project lifecycle.

A case study approach is used to collect data from construction sites in the USA, which performs poorly in construction safety and health, and Australia (AU), which performs well in construction safety and health. Qualitative data are collected to determine how and when safety is considered in the project lifecycle in both countries, and then the results are benchmarked to determine the benefits of addressing safety earlier in the process.

Data show that addressing a potential hazard earlier in the project lifecycle has performance benefits in terms of the level of hazard control.

The processes that are identified as possibly explaining the performance difference are just based on qualitative data from interviews. Targeted research addressing the relationship between these processes and safety outcomes is an opportunity for further research.

The case study data are used to identify specific processes that are used in AU that might be adopted in the USA to improve performance by integrating safety earlier into the decision-making process.

This paper highlights the advantages of integrating safety as a decision factor early in the process. Worker safety is not just an issue in the construction industry, and thus the findings are applicable to all industries in which worker safety is an issue.

This paper advances the safety in design literature by quantitatively supporting the link between when a hazard is addressed and performance. It also links the results to specific processes across countries, which advances the literature because most research in this area to data is within a single country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential to use infographics to capture, represent and communicate important information to construction designers, such that it improves their ability to understand the implications of design choices for construction workers’ health and safety.

Drawing on information obtained through a photographic Q-sort, supplemented with a literature review, health and safety information related to the design of a façade was collected from subject matter experts. This information was used to develop infographics representing the subject matter knowledge. A facilitated workshop was then held with 20 design professionals to engage them in a hazard identification process using a case study scenario. The designers were provided with the infographics and asked to comment upon how the infographics changed their assessments of the health and safety risks inherent in the case study building design. A sub-set of participants was interviewed to explore their perceptions of the impact and usefulness of the inforgraphics.

Infographics were developed at different levels of detail, representing potential health and safety issues associated with the site location and surroundings, the construction site environment and the detailed façade design. Workshop participants identified a number of potential health and safety issues associated with the case study scenario. However, this number increased substantially once they had viewed the infographic. Further, the health and safety issues identified when participants had access to the infographic were more likely to be less visible issues, relating to ergonomic hazards, procurement or the organisation and sequencing of work. The workshop participants who were interviewed described how the infographics enabled them to make a more global assessment of the health and safety implications of the case study building design because it helped them to understand the design in the physical construction site context. Participants also favoured the visual nature of the infographics and suggested that this format may be particularly useful to communicate important health and safety information to novice designers with limited on-site experience.

The infographics developed in this research were relatively simple two-dimensional representations produced and presented in hard copy format. It is possible that more sophisticated forms of infographic could have produced different results. Thus, it is important that future research develops different types of infographics and rigorously evaluates their effectiveness in developing designers’ health and safety-related knowledge and improving decision making.

The results indicate that simple infographics can help design professionals to better understand the health and safety implications of design decisions in the context of the construction site environment. In particular, the infographics appear to have increased designers’ ability to recognize less visible health and safety-related issues. The designers interviewed also described the potential usefulness of the infographics in design workshops as a tool to stimulate discussion and develop a shared understanding of the health and safety aspects of a particular design decision or choice.

The value of the research lies in the development and evaluation of infographics as a tool supports the integration of health and safety into design decision making. The potential to develop these tools into digital or web-based resources is also significant.

This purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study that assessed the attitudes, commitment and impact of public and private sector clients’ involvement in construction health and safety (H&S) in Nigeria.

Structured questionnaires were designed based on literature review and a pilot study, and administered to public and private clients in Nigeria’s construction industry. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyse the data.

The result shows that while clients’ attitudes towards H&S are not encouraging, public clients commitment and attitudes are better than that of private clients. This is emphasised by the significant difference between the categories of clients and: accident investigation; clients auditing contractors H&S records at the preconstruction stage. The common client H&S practice includes conducting site visits and inspections and attending H&S meetings, while engaging in H&S awareness and H&S audit during construction are not common. However, when clients are involved in H&S, it has resulted in a reduction in accidents, compensation claims, rework and improved the relationship between clients and contractors.

The findings form a basis for improving client involvement in H&S (factoring in the differences in clients) which policymakers, the construction industry and academics will find beneficial.

The study contributes to understanding the attitudes and commitment of public and private clients in H&S, evidencing the implications of the differences in their needs, characteristics and behaviours. While the study is the first to investigate the area in Nigeria, it also extends the knowledge of the discourse comparatively in broader terms.

This paper systematically reviewed research work on drivers of teamwork, which will reinforce construction work teams to enhance workers’ safety performance. This study adds to the existing but limited understanding of teamwork drivers on construction workers’ safety performance. This paper presents scholars and industry-based professionals with critical initiatives that have to be implemented in organisations to get positive results in safety while working in teams with an emphasis on systems drivers of teamwork on safety performance at the organisational level, which will help in providing information on the functioning of the teams and contribute towards improved safety performance of team workers.

This study aims to systematically examine the existing body of knowledge on drivers of teamwork by analysing 53 publications from the years 1997–2021. The Scopus search engine was used to conduct a systematic review and germane publications were collated.

According to the findings of the review, since 1997, there has been a burgeoning concern in the research of drivers of teamwork and its impact on workers’ safety performance. After performing a systematic review, 37 drivers of teamwork were identified. The top five drivers are effective communications, team workers’ relations, leadership, shared knowledge and information, and team training. Moreover, it was noted that the United States and Australia have been the international regions of focus for most of the research in the area of drivers of teamwork from the years 1997–2021. The 37 drivers of teamwork are distributed into six major socio-technical components: people drivers; culture drivers; metrics drivers; organisational and management practices and procedures drivers; infrastructure drivers and technology drivers.

The results reported present research scholars and professional practitioners with an overview of the drivers of teamwork that could be implemented in the construction industry to streamline potential implementations and improve safety performance of construction workers.

A list of teamwork drivers has been developed to ratify potential empirical research in the area of construction safety. The results would contribute to the existing but restricted understanding of drivers of teamwork in the construction industry.