Health & Safety: Health And Safety In The Construction Industry

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2.1 Introduction On this chapter literatures on health and safety in the construction industry will be provided ample understanding of the subject, the features and significance of health and safety in the construction industry and characteristics of the construction industry are briefly discussed. Occupational safety and health (OSH) also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS) or workplace health and safety (WHS) is an area concerned with the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe and healthy work environment. Safety can be defined to be the control of recognized hazards to achieve an acceptable level of risk.…show more content…
Most accidents involve falls of persons and occur during work on roofs, scaffolds and ladders. Collapse of structures and falling materials also account for many fatalities. Many of these accidents can be avoided by the establishment of measures and regulations to enhance safety. And often construction workers underestimate the hazards in their own work. This affects the inspiration for adopting safe work procedures. Helander (1991) added that the cost of construction accidents amounts to about 6% of total building costs. There are hence forceful monetary incentives in construction safety. Therefore, these may support the industry to invest in this area. Organizing safety and health is not only good for purpose of safety; it also gives good financial benefits. Disregarding safety can result in accident and ill-health which not only reduces the profits but can also go to the scope of closing the whole company. In the same way, Rozario (1996) says that in order to increase efficiency and reduce accidents, which not only benefits the individual construction company but also the whole nation, there should be a consistent high standard of performance throughout the construction industry. Pouliakas and Theodossiou ( 2010) also stated that the meaning of health and safety by stating that the increasing competition related to the globalization era, the prevalence of service oriented…show more content…
The ILO (2009) estimates the number of construction workers in the world are more than 110 million (usually, between 5 to 10% of the world‘s workforce). The construction sector plays an important role in the economy, and the actions are also essential to the triumph of socio-economic improvement of goals of grant infrastructure and employment. The ILO 2009 estimates the number of fatal occupational accidents in the construction industry at about 60,000 every year with about 64% in the Asia and Pacific region, 17% in the Americas, 10% in Africa and 9% in Europe (ITC-ILO,

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