title: Falls from Height in the Construction Industry: A Critical Review of the Scientific Literature.
abstract: Globally, falls from height (FFH) are a substantial public health jeopardy and are among the important leading causes of serious and fatal injuries for construction workers. A comprehensive understanding of the causal factors in FFH incidents is urgently required; however, the literature appears to lack a scientific review of FFH. In this study, 297 articles that contribute to the topic of fall incidents were reviewed. Seventy-five (75) articles met the criteria for relevance and were aggregated in a database to support a critical review. A synthesis of macro-variables approach was adopted rather than a structured meta-analysis. Such a method of analysis provides the flexibility to combine previous studies' findings. The most common factors associated with FFH are risky activities, individual characteristics, site conditions, organizational characteristics, agents (scaffolds/ladders) and weather conditions. The outcomes contributed to identifying the most significant research area for safety enhancement by improving engineering facilities, behaviour investigations and FFH prevention methods.
authors.affiliation: School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Queensland 4001, Australia. evanalaa.nadhim@hdr.qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Evan A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Nadhim
authors.affiliation: School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Queensland 4001, Australia. carol.hon@qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hon
authors.affiliation: School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Queensland 4001, Australia. paul.xia@qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Queensland 4001, Australia. i.stewart@qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: Department of Construction Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. fangdp@tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Dongping
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fang
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D060389:Construction Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D012449:Safety
keywords: construction accidents; construction activities and prevention strategies; fall from height