Utility of Wearable Sensing Devices for Environmental Monitoring on Construction Sites
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2022
ABSTRACT
Construction workers are often faced with several safety and health risks due to their constant exposure to extreme weather elements and hazardous materials in form of chemicals, gases, particulate matter (PM), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Continuous automated sensing of these inclement environmental conditions and hazardous materials for the provision of early warning alerts to workers is necessary for predicting and preventing future safety and health issues. This paper presents a two-phase investigative approach aimed at characterizing the role of wearable sensing devices (WSDs) in predicting and preventing injuries, illnesses, and accidents associated with environmental hazards on construction sites. First, a systematic review of the categories of environmental hazards on construction sites and the typical controls used to provide an additional layer of protection for workers is conducted. Thereafter, 23 environmental hazard-related injury, illness, and accident cases were extracted from archival databases to analyze the potential impact of utilizing WSDs as prevention tools for achieving more effective environmental monitoring on construction sites. This study provides valuable insights into how further investigation can be structured to evaluate the utility and implementation of this category for technology for effectively monitoring and eliminating the negative impact of harmful environmental conditions and materials on construction workers.
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Construction Research Congress 2022
Pages: 748 - 758
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Published online: Mar 7, 2022
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