Benchmarking construction safety performance at a global level: A case study of US, Canada, and New Zealand

Abstract

Construction safety plateau has become a global issue. To sustain the continuous improvement of the global construction safety performance, research studies on construction safety performance at a global scale, i.e. comparing safety performance across countries, are needed. To fill in this gap, this paper starts with a preliminary study by comparing the safety performance of the Canada, US, and New Zealand construction sites and by investigating the impact of three demographic factors on construction safety performance of workers, including age, work experience, and union membership. Safety surveys were collected from 2015 to 2017. In total, 837 surveys were collected from Canadian construction sites, 420 surveys were from US construction sites, and 40 were from New Zealand. The major findings are as follows. First, the top five physical injures that were reported most frequently are the same across the 3 countries, including cut, puncture, or open wound, headache or dizziness, strain or sprain, persistent fatigue, and skin rash or burn. Second, the top five unsafe events that were reported most frequently are the same across the 3 countries, including overexerted, slipped, tripped, or fell on the same level, pinch, exposed to chemicals, and struck against something fixed. Third, the most frequently reported unsafe event for all the 3 countries is overexerted. Finally, union membership has an extensive impact on the occurrence of safety incidents for both Canada and US sample. In future, more data are needed from New Zealand construction sites to enable further exploration.