Overview and analysis of safety management studies in the construction industry

Persistent endeavors have been made to promote construction safety, but fatalities still plague the industry. Recently there had been an emergence of a variety of construction safety research focusing on topics such as safety competency, accident statistics, design for safety, and safety culture. A large number of construction safety studies with the variety of topics make it difficult for stakeholders to have an overview of this field. Hence a systematic review of previous studies is paramount for facilitating sharing useful research findings and accessing future trends in construction safety research. A five-step framework was proposed in this review. The analysis focused on publication year, journal title, country/region distribution, organizational level, project phase, project type, innovative technology application and research topic. Three groups of construction safety research were identified. The first group of research is conducted from the perspective of safety management process, such as safety assessment and safety program. The second group aims to explore the impact of individual and group characteristics in relation to construction safety, such as worker behavior, perception, and safety climate. The third group utilizes accident/incident data to improve safety performance. In order to better capture construction safety research trend, these studies were discussed from chronological and thematic perspectives. Four main research findings including construction safety research perspectives, construction safety research trends, innovative technology applications in construction safety, and safety information flow, were gained. Finally, this review identified and discussed research gaps and corresponding agenda which can serve as guidance for future construction safety research. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.