الفهرس 
HAZARDS IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRYOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
C
onstruction is an important industry. However, it is a very hazardous in which fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries occur frequently due to its unique nature. Risk perception is an important determinant of health- and risk-related decisions as adopting healthy behaviors, using personal protection equipments, and their contribution in safety management, curtailing unhealthy behaviors, and accepting or rejecting a certain level of risks.
The objectives of this study were to estimate the perception of construction workers to the hazards in their work environment, to identify the role of workers’ personal and work related characteristics on their risk perception and to identify types of common occupational accidents involving construction workers in an Egyptian company.
A structured interview questionnaire was designed and applied on (104) workers. The questionnaire includes three sections: Section I: socio-demographic characteristics of the studied workers, Section II: work related data, Section III: assessment of risk perception.
Study results revealed that the mean age of the workers was 31.15 ± 12.23years, 63.5% were married, 58.7% were current smokers and 45.2% had completed secondary school or diploma.
About 78% of the workers were working with part time contract. The mean duration of working in construction was 14 ±12 years while the mean duration of working in current job was 6 ±8 years. The working hours per week ranged from 10 hours to 72 hours with mean of 50.5 ± 8hours.
Painters represented the highest percentage of the workers (28.8%), followed by carpenters (20.2%) and laborer (18.3%).
About 60% of the participated workers had experienced injuries in the last year. The most frequently encountered injuries were contusions (48.1%), abrasions (45.2) followed by fractures (37.5%) and eye and ear injuries (37.5).
Regarding the PPEs, 68.3%of the workers were wearing PPEs and the most frequently used PPEs were safety shoes (57.7%) and gloves (37.5%), while the least used PPEs were masks and goggles (2.9% each).
Regarding health and safety training, 38.5% of the workers received health and safety training; the majority of the workers reported that all the hazards (ranged from 49.5% to 71.2%) can be avoided by training except for the noise and heat stress which were reported as “cannot be avoided” by 68.3% and 65.4% respectively.
The very frequent hazards reported were repetitive movements (88.5%), noise (87.5%) and contact with chemicals (73.1%), heat stress (61.5%) followed by manual lifting (58.7%) and sharp objects (58.7%).While collapse (84.6%), falls (76%) and struck by objects (52.9%) were reported as quite frequent hazards.
Regarding the probability and severity of the injuries due to the studied hazards: repetitive movements was reported as very likely to cause injuries and other hazards were reported as sometime causing injuries except for noise and heat stress were reported as never causing hazards by (29.8%) and (17.3%) of the workers respectively. While nearly two thirds of the workers reported that struck by objects, repetitive movements and noise as less severe hazards and causing injuries not requiring medical intervention, also sharp objects and manual lifting were reported as less severe hazards by 54.8% and 36.5% of the workers respectively. While about half of the workers considered fall, collapse and contact with chemicals as injuries requiring medical intervention.
So, the study results revealed that the majority of the workers had low risk perception for all the hazards except for the noise as they had between no or acceptable risk perception by nearly half of the workers.
Regarding association between the factors affecting the workers’ perception of the hazards, the study revealed that six out of eleven studied variables were statistically significant (p <0.05). These are older age of the workers, lack of health and safety training, prolonged working hours and not wearing of PPEs, very frequent hazards and past experience of injuries.
Recommendations include that risk perception of the construction workers could be enhanced through changing unsafe working environment, implementation of safety measures, provision of PPEs and changing individual attitudes and behaviors towards the hazards and safety practices through health and safety training. Hence the rate of injuries and disabilities or leaving residual effects in the workers that would affect their quality of life later on would be controlled.