Causes Of Falls And Heat Stress In Construction Industries And The Need For A Fall Protection Plan

Current Problem

Employees mostly engaged in precast construction work and in the residential construction work needs conventional system of fall protection as a safety hazard to develop fall protection plan. The plan for fall protection is considered as a broad concept that basically includes trainings, procedures, methods, systems, and rules that are included in protection plan to save the workers from any kind of fall hazard in construction industry.

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The problem that is faced recently in construction industries is falling hazard faced by the workers due to heat stress (Lee et al. 2017). Due to increasing of climate temperature and long hours of outside work, the construction industries are facing hazard. Heat discomforts, thirst, and sweating are the main signs of increasing heat along with heat stroke.

The objective of this research paper is to find out the causes of heat stress in construction industries and need of Fall Protection Plan for the employees working in those industries. This research paper also deals with the ways that can mitigate the fall due heat stress in construction industries.

H1: High impact of heat stress fall protection in the construction industries.

H2: Low impact of heat stress fall protection in the construction industries.

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Heat stress is the disturbance that is caused by heat in construction industries. These heat stress increases the fall fatalities in the industry that the workers faces.

The research articles that are taken in this research paper are mostly taken form scholarly articles. In the taken articles, the authors have clearly defined the impact of heat stress in construction industries and the need of Fall Protection Plan in the construction industries to provide protection to the employees. 20 scholarly articles are taken in this research paper to review the results and find out the analysis that different authors had made in different journal/articles.

Title of Article

Publication Number & Publication Date

Description of Article

Difference Between Research & Article

Safety in green building construction projects in Singapore: Performance, critical issues, and improvement solutions

Published Online May 30, 2017

Contains critical issues of construction and improvement solution in Singapore construction industries

Issues are taken from this article related to the construction process.

Making the Fall Protection System Fit the Workplace

2016

Fall protection plan in construction industries.

Only the fall protection plan is taken into account.

Employees in Construction Industries faces heat stress in construction sites due to which they faces many accidents. This research paper deals with Fall Protection Plan in the construction industries that have taken place mainly due to heat stress. All such mitigation plan that can decrease the accidents due to heat stress are also defined in this research paper.

To conduct this research paper, all the ethics related to social, professional, and economical ethics will be followed. No humans will be forced to share their views on research questions and the analysis will be done from scholarly articles.

Research Objective

Falls are main fatalities cause in the construction industries that accounts to about one-third of total fatalities in industrial sectors. There are outdoor hazards that are the main environment hazard of illness risks that are related to heat and also the indoor workers suffers risk from extreme temperatures (Wong et al. 2016). Heat stress are caused because of longer hour outdoor work and the increasing level of climate temperatures in the construction sites. Due to heat stress, heat stroke, heat discomfort, heat sweating have increased which has affected the employees in the construction industries.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a report was published in the year 2015 from where it can be analyzed that there were almost 291 fatal falls to lower levels in the construction industries in year 2013 from a total of 828 fatalities occurred in the construction industries.

Stress are also caused because of the equipment that are used in the construction industries. There are many equipment that releases heat due to which the employees get stressed and experience illness due to heat stress (Kramer et al. 2015). There should be proper protection provided to the worker working with heat equipment to decrease the fall fatalities in the construction areas.

There are mainly three types of heat stress that are possible due to heat in construction sites.

  1. Heat Cramps- Heat Cramps include painful cramps that occurs in legs and includes moist and flushed skin problems (Hwang, Shan and Phuah 2018).
  2. Heat exhaustion- This includes muscles cramps, moist skin and pale skin, having high fever, vomiting, headache, weakness, diarrhea, faint feeling, nausea and anxiety.
  3. Heat stroke- Heat stroke involves warm and dry skin, usually high fever, confusion, agitation, decrease in heart rate, lethargy, stupor, and death because heat.

Heat stress index is the relation between the total amounts of evaporation required related to average person to perspire of an average person. The heat stress index can be measured by thermocouples, omega engineering device, infrared sensors, bimetallic devices and many more.

There are mainly three types of research method. Descriptive, associational, and intervention method. This this research paper, the mixed research method will be used that include descriptive as well as intervention research method.

To carry out the research analysis, questionnaire will be made consisting 30 questions. The respondents included in the analysis are taken from three construction industries of Singapore. Mainly workers aged from 22 to 60 years are considered for this survey.

From three research design that is from explanatory, descriptive and exploratory research design, exploratory and descriptive research design is used to carry out this research paper.

There are two methods of data collection to carry out a research analysis. The data collection procedures are primary data collection as well a secondary data collection. In this research paper, both types of data collection method is used including primary as well as secondary data collection.  

Research Hypothesis

Both qualitative as well as quantitative data are used for analyzing the data in this research paper. Information will be gathered by carrying out survey among the workers in the construction industries and qualitative data are taken from scholarly articles.

The expected results will show the process about how to mitigate the fall fatalities due to heat stress in the construction industries.

Task Name

Resource Names

Cost

Project schedule

$15,260.00

   Chapter One: Introduction

$3,270.00

      Background

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2

$640.00

      Current Problem

Member 1

$160.00

      Research Question

Member 1, Member 2

$480.00

      Research Objective

Member 3, Member 4

$320.00

      Research Hypothesis

Member 3

$80.00

      Definition of Terms

Member 2

$80.00

      Past related Research Articles

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2, Online Resource[1]

$1,430.00

      Rationale of research

Member 3

$80.00

   Chapter two: Literature Review

$1,440.00

      Concept of Heat Stress

Member 3, Member 4

$320.00

      Statistics of Injuries on Heat Stress

Member 1, Member 2

$160.00

      Heat effects Working near Heat Emitting Equipment

Member 3, Member 4, Member 2

$480.00

      Types of Heat Stress and Injuries

Member 3, Member 4

$320.00

      Types of Measurements on Heat Stress Index

Member 2

$160.00

   Chapter Three: Research Methodology

$2,920.00

      Types of Research Method

Member 3, Member 4

$640.00

      Respondents Analysis

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2, Survey[1]

$520.00

      Technique of Research Design

Member 3, Member 4

$160.00

      Technique of Data Collection

Member 3

$160.00

      Technique of Data Analysis

Member 1, Member 2

$640.00

      Expected Results

Member 4

$800.00

   Chapter Four: Project Timeline

$1,440.00

      Project Cost Budget

Member 1, Member 2

$800.00

      Project Schedule

Member 3, Member 4

$640.00

   Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations

$3,630.00

      Evaluation of Data

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2, Online Resource[1], Survey[1]

$2,590.00

      Conclusions

Member 3, Member 4

$320.00

      Documentation of Learning Outcomes

Member 1, Member 2

$320.00

      Recommendations

Member 3

$400.00

   Research Closure

$2,560.00

      Complete All Activities in Research

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2

$320.00

      Documentation of Entire Research

Member 1, Member 4

$1,600.00

      Validation of the Research and Learning

Member 3, Member 2

$320.00

      Team Sign Off

Member 1, Member 3, Member 4, Member 2

$320.00

Table 1: Project Cost Budget

(Source: Created by Author)

Task Name

Duration

Start

Finish

Project schedule

74 days

Mon 7/9/18

Thu 10/18/18

   Chapter One: Introduction

14 days

Mon 7/9/18

Thu 7/26/18

      Background

2 days

Mon 7/9/18

Tue 7/10/18

      Current Problem

2 days

Wed 7/11/18

Thu 7/12/18

      Research Question

3 days

Fri 7/13/18

Tue 7/17/18

      Research Objective

2 days

Wed 7/18/18

Thu 7/19/18

      Research Hypothesis

1 day

Fri 7/20/18

Fri 7/20/18

      Definition of Terms

1 day

Mon 7/23/18

Mon 7/23/18

      Past related Research Articles

4 days

Fri 7/20/18

Wed 7/25/18

      Rationale of research

1 day

Thu 7/26/18

Thu 7/26/18

   Chapter two: Literature Review

9 days

Fri 7/27/18

Wed 8/8/18

      Concept of Heat Stress

2 days

Fri 7/27/18

Mon 7/30/18

      Statistics of Injuries on Heat Stress

1 day

Tue 7/31/18

Tue 7/31/18

      Heat effects Working near Heat Emitting Equipment

2 days

Wed 8/1/18

Thu 8/2/18

      Types of Heat Stress and Injuries

2 days

Fri 8/3/18

Mon 8/6/18

      Types of Measurements on Heat Stress Index

2 days

Tue 8/7/18

Wed 8/8/18

   Chapter Three: Research Methodology

21 days

Thu 8/9/18

Thu 9/6/18

      Types of Research Method

4 days

Thu 8/9/18

Tue 8/14/18

      Respondents Analysis

1 day

Wed 8/15/18

Wed 8/15/18

      Technique of Research Design

1 day

Wed 8/15/18

Wed 8/15/18

      Technique of Data Collection

2 days

Thu 8/16/18

Fri 8/17/18

      Technique of Data Analysis

4 days

Mon 8/20/18

Thu 8/23/18

      Expected Results

10 days

Fri 8/24/18

Thu 9/6/18

   Chapter Four: Project Timeline

9 days

Fri 9/7/18

Wed 9/19/18

      Project Cost Budget

5 days

Fri 9/7/18

Thu 9/13/18

      Project Schedule

4 days

Fri 9/14/18

Wed 9/19/18

   Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations

16 days

Fri 9/7/18

Fri 9/28/18

      Evaluation of Data

7 days

Fri 9/7/18

Mon 9/17/18

      Conclusions

2 days

Tue 9/18/18

Wed 9/19/18

      Documentation of Learning Outcomes

2 days

Thu 9/20/18

Fri 9/21/18

      Recommendations

5 days

Mon 9/24/18

Fri 9/28/18

   Research Closure

14 days

Mon 10/1/18

Thu 10/18/18

      Complete All Activities in Research

1 day

Mon 10/1/18

Mon 10/1/18

      Documentation of Entire Research

10 days

Tue 10/2/18

Mon 10/15/18

      Validation of the Research and Learning

2 days

Tue 10/16/18

Wed 10/17/18

      Team Sign Off

1 day

Thu 10/18/18

Thu 10/18/18

Table 2: Project Schedule

(Source: Created by Author)

Conclusions

The above proposal states the details of heat stress fall protection plan in the construction industries. This paper describes the background of the fall protection plan in construction industry and literature review related to the topic chosen. There are research questions and objective defined in this paper that will help to analyze the result of the research paper.

There are many ways to mitigate the fall fatalities in construction industries. All the mitigation methods due to heat stress are to be followed by the workers working the construction industries.

References

Alshebani, M.N. and Wedawatta, G., 2014. Making the construction industry resilient to extreme weather: lessons from construction in hot weather conditions. Procedia Economics and Finance, 18, pp.635-642.

Chew, M.Y.L., 2017. Construction technology for tall buildings. World Scientific.

Dong, X.S., Wang, X., Largay, J.A., Platner, J.W., Stafford, E., Cain, C.T. and Choi, S.D., 2014. Fatal falls in the US residential construction industry. American journal of industrial medicine, 57(9), pp.992-1000.

Hwang, B.G., Shan, M. and Phuah, S.L., 2018. Safety in green building construction projects in Singapore: Performance, critical issues, and improvement solutions. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 22(2), pp.447-458.

Jia, A.Y., Rowlinson, S., Loosemore, M., Xu, M., Li, B. and Gibb, A., 2017. Institutions and institutional logics in construction safety management: The case of climatic heat stress. Construction management and economics, 35(6), pp.338-367.

Kramer, D.M., Tenkate, T., Strahlendorf, P., Kushner, R., Gardner, A. and Holness, D.L., 2015. Sun Safety at Work Canada: a multiple case-study protocol to develop sun safety and heat protection programs and policies for outdoor workers. Implementation Science, 10(1), p.97.

Lee, W., Lin, K.Y., Seto, E. and Migliaccio, G.C., 2017. Wearable sensors for monitoring on-duty and off-duty worker physiological status and activities in construction. Automation in Construction, 83, pp.341-353.

Li, X., Zhang, X., Hadjisophocleous, G. and McGregor, C., 2015. Experimental study of combustible and non-combustible construction in a natural fire. Fire Technology, 51(6), pp.1447-1474.

Saurin, T.A., 2016. Safety inspections in construction sites: A systems thinking perspective. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 93, pp.240-250.

Wong, L., Wang, Y., Law, T. and Lo, C.T., 2016. Association of root causes in fatal fall-from-height construction accidents in Hong Kong. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 142(7), p.04016018.