Abstract
The increasing commitment to safety over the last two decades has contributed to a 67% decline in recordable incident rates. The rate of fatalities, however, has recently increased. Human factors, like fatigue, strongly relate to fatalities. The prediction of fatigue would allow for an early intervention, thus mitigating safety risk. The literature suggests several potential predictors of fatigue onset; however, each of these was mainly studied in isolation, in laboratory settings, and their predictive validity in the construction industry remains unknown. The authors hypothesized that a set of measurable factors can predict construction worker fatigue. A field study of 252 US construction workers was conducted in which potential predictors and fatigue levels were assessed, and the first fatigue predictive models for construction workers were created. The models presented low to medium predictivity, demonstrating that laboratory research and results obtained from other occupations do not directly apply to the construction industry. Furthermore, fatigue predictive models showed to differ among trades. These models will serve the industry to better manage fatigue; however, further research in this area is needed.
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Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request. Information about the Journal’s data-sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001263.
Acknowledgments
The present study was successful because of the collaboration and interest of safety leaders, union representatives, supervisors, and workers who provided open and candid responses and who accommodated the research team for in-person field visits.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144 • Issue 8 • August 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 17, 2017
Accepted: Jan 15, 2018
Published online: May 25, 2018
Published in print: Aug 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Oct 25, 2018
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Case studies
- Construction engineering
- Construction industry
- Construction management
- Employment
- Engineering fundamentals
- Fatigue (material)
- Field tests
- Human and behavioral factors
- Labor
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Methodology (by type)
- Personnel management
- Practice and Profession
- Public administration
- Public health and safety
- Research methods (by type)
- Safety
- Tests (by type)
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