An Analysis of Fatal Events in the Construction Industry 2001

This report covers only a portion of the deaths in the construction industry in 2001

This report is based upon OSHA-inspected fatal events in construction during calendar 2001. The data analyzed were provided by Dr. Joseph Dubois, Director, Office of Statistics, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. William R. Schriver, Ph.D., and Thomas E. Cressler II, M.S., Resource, conducted the study and prepared this report; they alone are responsible for all interpretations, conclusions and any errors found in the report.

Table of Contents

Section

I. Introduction
II. Data
III. Analysis

List of Tables in Text

Table I. Construction Fatality Event Causes, 2001
Table II. A Comparison of Ranks of Causes of Fatal Events in 1991 - 2000 with 2001

Appendices

Appendix A:

Definitions of Fatality Causes

Appendix B:

Figure B1. Comparison of Construction Fatality Causes (Pooled Years 1995-2000 with 2001)
Figure B2. Frequency of Causes of Construction Fatality Events (2001)
Figure B3. Frequency of Causes of Construction Fatality Events (1995-2000)
Figure B4. Comparison of Construction Fatality Causes - Combined Categories (Pooled Years 1995-2000 with 2001)

Appendix C:

Table C1. Construction Fatal Events by End-Use Type, 2001
Table C2. Construction Fatal Events by Type of Project, 2001
Table C3. Construction Fatal Events by Four-Digit SIC, 2001
Table C4. Construction Fatal Events by Project Value, 2001
Table C5. Construction Fatal Events by Construction Operation, 2001

I. Introduction

This paper reports on the causes of fatal events in the construction industry which occurred in calendar year 2001. Seven earlier studies¹ by the Construction Industry Research and Policy Center (CIRPC) analyzed the causes of fatal events in this industry in 1991-1992, 1993-1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

II. Data

The data analyzed in this report, provided by OSHA from Form 170's, consist of narrative descriptions of the 719 fatal events inspected by OSHA resulting from accidents which occurred in construction during calendar year 2001. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 provides States with the option of administrating the Act themselves or accepting Federal administration of the Act. Twenty-nine States and the District of Columbia chose administration under the Federal System, and the remaining 21 States and two Territories chose self-administration under State Plans².

In this report as in earlier reports, analysis includes all OSHA-inspected fatal construction accidents regardless of Federal or State administration.

Also, as in the earlier studies, non-accidental fatalities on construction sites or contractor yards (such as deaths from non-work related heart attacks, strokes, seizures, etc.) and fatalities of construction workers killed off-site in traffic accidents were excluded from the analysis; these fatalities accounted for about 3 percent of OSHA-inspected fatal construction events in 1991-2000 and 3 percent in 2001. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employers to report fatalities to OSHA within eight hours of the occurrence of the event, all fatalities on construction sites are not inspected by OSHA; for example, OSHA does not inspect fatal construction events involving independent contractors with no employees. Therefore, the results reported upon here do not provide a year-to-year analysis of changes in the absolute number of fatal events or individuals killed on construction sites.

Each narrative record typically consists of a brief description of the event leading to the fatality, although this is not always the case. Where the narrative description was omitted, inconclusive or completely unclear the event cause was coded "unknown cause or other"; otherwise each narrative was analyzed and classified into one of 31 cause categories, although a great deal of collective judgment was often required to classify the cause of many of the accidents.

This report also includes the following classification of each fatal event according to coding by the OSHA compliance officer who investigated the accident: (1) type of construction (new or addition, alteration or rehabilitation, maintenance or repair, demolition, other); (2) estimate of total project value (seven dollar-value categories beginning with "under $50,000" and ending with "$20,000,000 and over"); (3) 17 end-use categories, such as "single-family housing," "multi-family building," "commercial building," "street or highway," etc.; and (4) the construction operation being performed that caused the fatal event (selected from a list of construction operations such as "backfilling and compacting," "cutting concrete pavement," "erecting structural steel," "installing equipment (HVAC and other," etc.). However, CIRPC's review of over 1200 case files of fatal construction events occurring in 1997, 1998 and 1999 revealed that coded data for an event were sometimes internally inconsistent or did not comport with corresponding narrative descriptions. Consequently, the data analyzed in this report are restricted to the direct causes of the fatal events where the authors were able, in most cases, to classify the events with relative certainty according to 31 types of causes, essentially the same types as were used in CIRPC's previous fatality studies. However, coded data are included in Appendix C for the following: (1) end-use of structure; (2) type of construction; (3) occupation of the victim(s); (4) contract value of the construction project; and (5) construction operation associated with the fatality.

In classifying the events a rule of primacy was followed for multiple-cause fatalities (representing less than 1 percent of the fatality events in this study and the earlier studies cited): the first cause in the chain of causes was recorded as the cause of the fatal event. Definitions of the causes are shown in Appendix A.

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