Understanding the Effectiveness of OSHA Construction Consultations in Reducing Serious Hazards
Wayne Gray
Clark University
Email: [email protected]
John Mendeloff
University of Pittsburgh
Email: [email protected]
Abstract:
By analyzing OSHA data on the voluntary safety consultation services each state offers to construction companies, this project aims to assess how those services affect fatalities and serious injuries. It is also exploring the pathways by which consultation visits may lead to reductions in hazards and injuries. In year 1 the researchers worked with OSHA to get access to its data and started organizing the datasets needed for the analysis. The team also met with OSHCON (the executive board of state consultation programs) to get their support and prepared a paper including preliminary analyses of the connection between consultation visit rates and construction fatality rates. In the coming year the researchers will add Census Bureau injury data and extend their analyses to firm-level data, as well as sharing their findings with state Consultation Program Managers and others through presentations and papers.