Assessment of Safety in Residential Construction: The Case of Jordan

Abstract

Safety issues are a major concern in the construction industry because construction accidents, injuries, and fatalities bring great losses to all parties in the construction field. This study aims to evaluate the number of injuries and safety culture in residential construction sites in Jordan and to emphasize the importance of safety awareness. We used the OSHA Safety Culture Survey to measure safety culture and awareness of supervisors and laborers at various residential worksites. We also used a modified version of the Saudi Aramco contractor's job safety inspection sheet to measure the safety level in these worksites. The resultant data on the number and locations of injuries corresponded to data found by Jordan's Social Security Corporation. The safety level was found to be low in the observed work sites. From the present findings, we propose a number of recommendations to improve safety performance.