Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction
Publication Date
6-14-2017
Abstract
Worker injuries and illnesses can affect the profitability of an organization. Regardless of the regulatory requirements for safety and health, many organizations prefer to see positive returns (i.e., better safety metric performance) on their safety investments (i.e., project costs associated with injury and illness prevention programs). Understanding the relationship between costs associated with an injury and illness prevention program of a construction project and project safety performance is critical to the future success of construction organizations in the United States. In evaluating this relationship, the authors’ goal was to identify an equilibrium point of injury and illness prevention program investment at which the relationship can be beneficial to contractors. Data collected from 93 U.S. construction projects were analyzed for the presence of a relationship between project spending and safety performance. Per the analysis, an injury and illness prevention program cost of 5–6% of the total budget may be adequate to maintain injury rates at low levels. This information can be used in developing or revising a contractor’s project-specific injury and illness prevention budget.
Recommended Citation
Rajendran, S., Bliss, M., & Klyve, D. (2017). Optimum Injury and Illness Prevention Costs for U.S. Construction Projects. Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, 22(4), 04017013. https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)sc.1943-5576.0000332
Journal
Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Copyright
Version of Record © 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Comments
Please note: This is the author’s version of a work. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication.
This material may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This material may be found here.