Occupational Health and Safety Management in Construction

Occupational health and safety management in construction encompasses the systematic identification, evaluation and control of hazards throughout the project lifecycle. The sector remains one of the highest risk industries globally, with falls, machinery incidents and exposure to harmful substances among the leading causes of injury and fatality. Modern management approaches integrate regulatory compliance, risk assessment methodologies, safety culture enhancement and worker engagement to reduce incidents and promote wellbeing. Central to this effort are structured safety management systems—often aligned with international standards—which prescribe roles, responsibilities and processes for hazard identification, incident reporting and continuous improvement. Technological innovations, such as advanced surveillance, wearable sensors and digital models, increasingly support real-time monitoring and predictive analytics. Equally important are behavioural and organisational factors: fostering a positive safety climate, training for both routine and exceptional scenarios, and promoting resilience so that teams can adapt safely to changing site conditions. Across diverse geographies, these practices contribute to lowering accident rates, improving productivity and ensuring that construction activities align with broader public-health and sustainability goals.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Occupational Health and Safety Management in Construction publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in occupational health and safety management in construction across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Safety climate: The shared perceptions among employees regarding the priority given to safety within an organisation.

Risk assessment: Systematic process of hazard identification, estimation of exposure and evaluation of the likelihood and severity of harm.

Building Information Modelling (BIM): A digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a facility, used to integrate safety data and visualise hazards in three dimensions.

Fall arrest system: A collective term for equipment and procedures—such as harnesses, lifelines and guardrails—designed to prevent or mitigate injury when working at height.

Resilience engineering: An approach that emphasises the capacity of individuals and systems to adapt proactively to expected and unexpected challenges, maintaining safe operations.

References

1. SRGAN-enhanced unsafe operation detection and classification of heavy construction machinery using cascade learning. Artificial Intelligence Review (2024).
2. Early Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the United States Construction Industry. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2021).
3. Falls from Height in the Construction Industry: A Critical Review of the Scientific Literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2016).
4. A system of safety management practices and worker engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation. Accident Analysis & Prevention (2013).
5. Impact of individual resilience and safety climate on safety performance and psychological stress of construction workers: A case study of the Ontario construction industry. Journal of Safety Research (2017).