Relationship between safety measures and human error in the construction industry: working at heights

Abstract

In recent years, falling from heights has been reported as the primary cause of fatalities within the Australian construction industry. While there is substantial literature exploring safety and human error in an attempt to decrease the occurrences of accidents through the implementation of organizational and physical hazard-related strategies, little attention has been brought towards the impact of psychological distress on the relationship between human error and safety measures. Therefore, this article aims at examining the relationship between safety measures and human error with the objective of identifying the impact of psychological distress among workers working at heights within the construction industry on the relationship. This study found that human error can occur as a result of psychological distress and therefore provides a foundation for future research to explore whether proper implementation of psychological safety measures could decrease the occurrence of human failures and accidents when working at heights.

Keywords:

• safety measures
• human error
• psychological distress
• falls from heights
• prevention strategies
• psychological safety measures
• structural equation modelling
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.