Impact of the OSHA trench and excavation standard on fatal injury in the construction industry. Fatal falls in the US construction industry, 1990 to 1999. Effectiveness of the training program for workers at construction sites of the high-speed railway line between Torino and Novara: impact on injury rates. Work-related falls among union carpenters in Washington State before and after the Vertical Fall Arrest Standard. [Prevention of building site accidents in Umbria during reconstruction after an earthquake: the experience of one local health unit]. Do drug-free workplace programs prevent occupational injuries? Evidence from Washington State.
In 1989 the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration revised the excavation and trenching standard. We examined fatal injuries from trench cave-in in the construction industry for five year periods before and after the revision in the 47 US states for which data were available for both periods. There was a 2-fold decline in the rate of fatal injury after revision of the standard, which substantially exceeded the decline in other causes of fatal injury in the construction industry during the same period. The decline was somewhat greater in large business firms but was evident in construction firms of all size classes. The fatality rate from trench cave-in in union construction workers was approximately half that of nonunion workers, but we were unable to determine whether this was best explained by union status, employment of union workers at larger construction firms, or both. This study provides evidence for the effectiveness of OSHA regulation in preventing fatal work injury. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) database allows for the detailed analysis of risk factors surrounding fatal occupational events. This study used IMIS data to (1) perform a risk factor analysis of fatal construction falls, and (2) assess the impact of the February 1995 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart M OSHA fall protection regulations for construction by calculating trends in fatal fall rates. In addition, IMIS data on fatal construction falls were compared with data from other occupational fatality surveillance systems. For falls in construction, the study identified several demographic factors that may indicate increased risk. A statistically significant downward trend in fatal falls was evident in all construction and within several construction categories during the decade. Although the study failed to show a statistically significant intervention effect from the new OSHA regulations, it may have lacked the power to do so. There are very few published studies evaluating the impact of safety and health training on injury outcomes in the construction industry. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the training program on injury rates at a major railway construction project.
                The population consisted of 2,795 workers involved in a safety training program at the construction sites of the high-speed railway line Torino-Novara. Two types of analyses were carried out in order to assess the effectiveness of the training program in reducing the number of injuries: (i) a pre-post analysis, which took into account the fact that workers were enrolled at different times and the training intervention did not occur at the same time for all subjects; (ii) an interrupted time-series model, which corrected for the time trend and considered the autocorrelation between individual observations.
                Twenty-nine percent of workers who spent at least 1 day at the construction sites attended at least one training module. Pre-post analysis: At the end of the training program, the incidence of occupational injuries had fallen by 16% after the basic training module and by 25% following the specific modules. Time-series model: Training led to a 6% reduction in injury rates, which was not statistically significant.
                The training program that was implemented had a moderately positive impact on the health of workers. Further studies are being conducted to obtain a more complete assessment of the actual effectiveness of the program in reducing the incidence of injuries.
                Copyright 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Washington State enacted a change in their fall standard for the construction industry in 1991, preceding the Safety Standard for Fall Protection in the Construction Industry promulgated by Federal OSHA in 1994.
                We evaluated changes in the rate of falls from elevations and measures of severity among a large cohort of union carpenters after the fall standard change in Washington State, taking into account the temporal trends in their overall injury rates.
                There was a significant decrease in the rate of falls from height after the standard went into effect, even after adjusting for the overall decrease in work-related injuries among this cohort. Much of the decrease was immediate, likely representing the publicity surrounding fatal falls and subsequent promulgation of the standard. The greatest decrease was seen between 3 and 3(1/2) years after the standard went into effect. There was a significant reduction in mean paid lost days per event after the standard change and there was a significant reduction in mean cost per fall when adjusting for age and the temporal trend for costs among non-fall injuries.
                Through the use of observational methods we have demonstrated significant effects of the Washington State Vertical Fall Arrest Standard among carpenters in the absence of a control or comparison group. Without controlling for the temporal trend in overall injury rates, the rate of decline in falls appeared significantly greater, but the more pronounced, but delayed, decline was not seen. The analyses demonstrate potential error in failing to account for temporal patterns or assuming that a decline after an intervention is related to the intervention.
                Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Building site related accidents are so frequent and are associated with such serious consequences that they constitute a major "health emergency" in Italy where dangerous work conditions in the construction industry often derive from excessive financial, organisational and time pressures. After the 1997 earthquake in Umbria an extensive re-building programme led to a concentration of innumerable construction firms, sub-tendering practices and the use of poorly skilled workforces who were often employed in the black economy. At the same time, SPSAL (Prevention Service for Occupational Settings) activity needed to be intensified in Perugia Health Unit No 2 in the District of Assisi, which had been devastated by the earthquake.
                To monitor construction site development, related accidents and injuries, and surveillance activity, data were collected from building site notifications on the basis of Article 11, Law 494/96, outcomes of inspections, including sanctions, and INAIL (National Insurances) certificates of work-related injuries. Construction notifications showed building sites increased in number from the 200 sites/year before the earthquake to almost 1400 per year at maximum reconstruction activity. Inspections and surveillance also increased to over 350 inspections/year in 250 sites/year. About 600 firms were monitored and sanctions increased Sanctions mainly referred to high-level work, scaffolding, protection against falls from heights, and DPI. (Personal Protective Equipments). Accidents increased from 150/year before the earthquake to about 300/year. The annual incidence, a rough indicator of prevention, dropped, indicating good quality prevention strategies were in force. The drop in the annual incidence index would not have been evident without concomitant monitoring of notifications and certificates of work-related injuries. These two databases are invaluable tools when investigating changes in the reference stan dard of the construction industry and assessing the efficacy of implemented prevention programmes. To evaluate the effect of a publicly sponsored drug-free workplace program on reducing the risk of occupational injuries.
                Workers' compensation claims data from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries covering the period 1994 through 2000 and work-hours data reported by employers served as the data sources for the analysis.
                We used a pre-post design with a nonequivalent comparison group to assess the impact of the intervention on injury risk, measured in terms of differences in injury incidence rates. Two hundred and sixty-one companies that enrolled in the drug-free workplace program during the latter half of 1996 were compared with approximately 20,500 nonintervention companies. We tested autoregressive, integrated moving-average (ARIMA) models to assess the robustness of our findings.
                The drug-free workplace intervention was associated (p < .05) with a statistically significant decrease in injury rates for three industry groups: construction, manufacturing, and services. It was associated (p < .05) with a reduction in the incidence rate of more serious injuries involving four or more days of lost work time for two industry groups: construction and services. The ARIMA analysis supported
                The drug-free workplace program we studied was associated with a selective, industry-specific preventive effect. The strongest evidence of an intervention effect was for the construction industry. Estimated net cost savings for this industry were positive though small in magnitude.