Safety and Age: A Longitudinal Study of Ontario Construction Workers

Although safety performance measurement over time are vital for safety management, few longitudinal studies of construction safety have been conducted. While youth (age 18-24) are most often the focus of safety initiatives, safety management of older workers (age 55 plus) is also important because of the large percentage of older workforce. This paper examines the change in safety incidents on Ontario construction sites based on survey data from 2004 and 2014. Safety incident frequencies of three age groups (18-24, 25-54, 55 plus) are compared. The results show a downward trend for nearly all incident types. However, sprains or strains and fractures (high cost injuries) remain unchanged. Correspondingly, slips, trips and falls, which are the indicator events, are up. In addition, the results show that youth have the greatest decrease in frequency of almost all incident types and older workers made the greatest improvement percentage-wise in physical injuries and safety events. However, youth should still be the focus of safety initiatives because they experience the most incidents in 14 out of 26 injury and event types. Safety training strategies may need to be adapted to the older workforce given the important role of older workers in building a safer workplace.