Occupational risk assessment in construction industry – Overview and reflection

• Published in: Safety science 2011-06, Vol.49 (5), p.616-624
• Main Authors: Pinto, Abel, Nunes, Isabel L., Ribeiro, Rita A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Construction; Construction industry; Fuzzy set theory; Fuzzy sets; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Occupational; Occupational risk assessment; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Reflection; Risk assessment; Safety; Workplaces
• ISSN: 0925-7535; 1879-1042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2011.01.003

► We present a state-of-art on occupational risk assessment methods for construction. ► We also discuss methods’ limitations. ► Advantage of using fuzzy sets approaches to deal with ill-defined situations. The construction industry is plagued by occupational risky situations and poor working conditions. Occupational risk assessment (ORA) on workplace sites is the first and key step to achieve adequate safety levels, particularly to support decision-making in safety programs. Most construction safety efforts are applied informally under the premise that simply allocating more resources to safety management will improve safety on site. Moreover, there are many traditional methods to address ORA, but few have been adapted and validated for use in the construction industry, particularly in the design stage, for which traditional approaches do not give adequate answers. This paper presents a state-of-the-art on ORA traditional methods, for the construction industry, discussing their limitations and pointing advantages of using fuzzy sets approaches to deal with ill-defined situations.