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CPWR UPDATE
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September 2018
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From the Desk of Chris Trahan Cain, Executive Director
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Fatal Injuries at Road Construction Sites among Construction Workers:
A CPWR Quarterly Data Report
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In 2016, more than 100 workers died on U.S. road construction sites
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Working at road construction sites can be dangerous. Between 2011 and 2016, 532 construction workers lost their lives at road construction sites, an average of 89 workers each year. CPWR's Data Center recently explored road construction fatality trends and causes using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the key findings:
- About half of these deaths happened when a worker on foot was struck by a vehicle or mobile heavy equipment (such as a dump truck on the worksite, or a passing car intruding on the worksite).
- Construction laborers suffered the greatest number of construction fatalities, and both the number and rate of laborers' fatalities increased substantially during the economic recovery.
- "Crossing Guards" (i.e., flaggers) had the highest risk, with 41 out of every 100,000 workers killed on the job each year.
These deaths can be prevented with proper deployment of barriers and intrusion alarms to protect workers from passing vehicles, improved traffic enforcement in work zones, and other interventions. To learn more, visit CPWR's Construction Solutions database.
The complete Quarterly Data Report, Fatal Injuries at Road Construction Sites among Construction Workers, is available on the CPWR website.
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 TOOLS FOR SAFETY AND HEALTH
Clear Writing for a Construction Audience
Do you write safety and health training materials? It's not enough to make sure your facts are correct. The WAY you write will dictate whether your audience understands and remembers your message. The words you choose, the order you present information, even the way you use bullet points make a difference. CPWR has created a short guide to clear and effective writing. Interested? Download a copy of Clear Writing for a Construction Audience from the CPWR website, and view a recorded webinar on the topic on CPWR's YouTube Channel.
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RESEARCH NEWS
In concrete drilling, new electric rotary drills protect worker health without reducing productivity
Many contractors have long relied on heavy pneumatic rock drills for concrete drilling tasks, tools that expose operators to hazardous levels of noise, dust and vibration. Now a new generation of high-powered, electric rotary drills is coming on the market: how do they stack up? A CPWR-supported research team tested the two drills under laboratory conditions and found that the electric drills penetrated concrete just as quickly as the pneumatic ones, with less noise and vibration. Moreover, respiratory silica levels were an astonishing 40 times higher with the pneumatic drill than with the electric drill. CLICK HERE for a one-page summary of the study's Key Findings. Pneumatic rock drill vs. electric rotary hammer drill: Productivity, vibration, dust, and noise when drilling into concrete appeared in Applied Ergonomics.
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Tuesday, Sept 25 @ 2pm ET: Assessment of contractor safety (ACES) through prequalification organizational surveys. While many project owners and general contractors review injury rates and worker compensation history of prospective bidders, a growing number are assessing leading indicators as well, such as the quality of their safety management systems. Can leading indicators such as these predict future safety performance? A research team at Northeastern University has created a tool for assessing contractor safety management systems and tested the association between safety assessment scores and injury rates for a population of 2198 contractors. Join Professor Jack Dennerlein as he shares the results and discusses what's next for this research. CLICK TO REGISTER
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Evaluating the readability and suitability of construction occupational safety and health materials designed for workers. Clayton Sinyai, Brenda MacArthur, and Thomas Roccotagliata, 2018. American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
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How to Write Safety Materials Everyone Can Understand, Door + Window
CPWR publishes alert, toolbox talk targeting opioid crisis in construction. Safety + Health
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