Strategies for Improving Safety and Health of Ethnic Minority Construction Workers
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 142, Issue 9
Abstract
The construction industries of developed countries are faced with an aging workforce and a shortage of recruits. It is common for migrant workers/ethnic minorities (EMs) who are already part of the society to join the construction industry. With increasing involvement of EMs in the construction industry, effective strategies for improving their safety and health are urgently needed. The existing body of knowledge is mainly derived from research conducted in English-speaking countries with Western cultures. Research on safety of migrant/EM construction workers in multidialect Asian countries with Eastern cultures has been lacking. This study aimed to identify various strategies for improving the safety and health of EM construction workers from the Asian perspective. Twenty-two face-to-face semistructured interviews were performed with safety professionals in Hong Kong followed by two rounds of Delphi survey with 18 safety experts to verify the interview findings and rank the relative importance of the strategies. The study unveiled 14 strategies for improving the safety performance of EM workers. The three most important ones identified were (1) to provide safety training in EM native languages, (2) that government and industry associations should play an active role in promoting health and safety awareness of EM workers, and (3) to encourage EM workers to learn the local language. This study contributes to filling the research gap by evaluating the strategies for improving safety of migrant/EM construction workers in Asian countries with Eastern cultures in which English is not the first language. Research findings would assist occupational health and safety experts and relevant stakeholders in designing strategies for improving the safety and health of EM workers, which will ultimately improve overall safety performance of the construction industry.
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was jointly supported by grants from the Hong Kong Central Policy Unit and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This paper forms part of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University funded project titled Managing Construction Safety for Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong (Project 1-ZV9E) and public policy research project titled Improving Safety Communication of Ethnic Minority Workers (Project K-QZ1F), from which other deliverables are produced with different objectives/scope but share a common background and methodology. The authors acknowledge and thank all the interviewees and other industry experts who participated in this research and remain nameless. Without them this research would not have been possible. The authors also thank Professor Michael Anson (Professor Emeritus, Department of Building and Real Estate of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China) for his insightful comments and for proofreading the manuscript.
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 142 • Issue 9 • September 2016
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© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2015
Accepted: Dec 21, 2015
Published online: Mar 7, 2016
Discussion open until: Aug 7, 2016
Published in print: Sep 1, 2016
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