Strategies for improving safety performance in construction firms

• Published in: Accident analysis and prevention 2016-09, Vol.94, p.107-118
• Main Authors: Alarcón, Luis Fernando, Acuña, Diego, Diethelm, Sven, Pellicer, Eugenio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accident investigation; Accident prevention; Accident rate; Accidental impacts; Accidents; Accidents, Occupational - prevention & control; Accidents, Occupational - statistics & numerical data; Chile; Chile - epidemiology; Construction; Construction company; Construction Industry - standards; Construction Industry - statistics & numerical data; Databases, Factual; Humans; Occupational Health - standards; Occupational Health - statistics & numerical data; Occupational Injuries - epidemiology; Occupational Injuries - prevention & control; Prevention practice; Safety; Safety management; Safety Management - methods; Safety Management - standards; Safety Management - statistics & numerical data; Statistical analysis; Strategy
• ISSN: 0001-4575; 1879-2057
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2016.05.021

•Sample of 1180 construction firms and 221 individual prevention practices.•Analysis of strategies’ effectiveness reducing injury rates in construction.•Identification of individual and combined impacts of practices.•Choice of practices is more important than the number of practices implemented.•At a given point the marginal contribution of adding practices is virtually zero. Over the years many prevention management practices have been implemented to prevent and mitigate accidents at the construction site. However, there is little evidence of the effectiveness of individual or combined practices used by companies to manage occupational health and safety issues. The authors selected a sample of 1180 construction firms and 221 individual practices applied in these companies to analyze their effectiveness reducing injury rates over a period of four years in Chile. Different methods were used to study this massive database including: visual analyses of graphical information, statistical analyses and classification techniques. Results showed that practices related to safety incentives and rewards are the most effective from the accident rate viewpoint, even though they are seldom used by companies; on the other hand, practices related to accidents and incidents investigation had a slight negative impact on the accident rate because they are frequently used as a reactive measure. In general, the higher the percentage of prevention practices implemented in a strategy, the lower the accident rate. However, the analysis of the combined effect of prevention practices indicated that the choice of the right combination of practices was more important than just the number of practices implemented.