Analysis of Construction Worker Injuries That Do Not Result in Lost Time

Abstract

Attempts to examine the root causes of injuries in the construction industry have been largely focused on fatalities and other serious injuries. These efforts were undertaken with the assumption that the root causes of serious injuries could lead to identifying approaches that could prevent the recurrence of similar injuries in the future and that these approaches would also be successful in eliminating many minor injuries. While some injuries may be either minor or serious depending on small differences in worker position, etc., that assumption does not appear to be valid for most injuries. The trends of causes leading to minor injuries are often quite different from those resulting in serious injuries. With this assumption, an examination was conducted to profile nearly 136,000 construction worker injuries, most of which did not result in lost time. Results indicate that these injuries, not resulting in lost time, generally do not fit the profile of injuries that result in fatalities or that are serious. Over half of the injuries in the present study were associated with lacerations (usually of the fingers and hand) and injuries sustained by the lumbar spine, upper extremities, or eyes. The percentage of injuries that involved lacerations was considerably higher for construction than for all other industries. The costs of injuries were found to be quite varied, depending on the part of the body that was injured.

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