Ranking Main Causes of Falling from Height Hazard in High-Rise Construction Projects

Background and aims: Falling from work surfaces at height is often known as one of the main causes of fatal occupational accidents in the construction industry. Preventing from this type of accidents is a favorable subject not only for workers and employers, but also for HSE and insurance professionals of companies. Hence, the aim of this study is to identify and rank the causes of this hazard in order to prevent from its occurrence in large construction projects. Methods: In the beginning, main causes of falling from height hazard were identified and a fault tree was drawn for each of them. Then, these causes were weighted using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Fault Tree Analysis and finally were ranked. Results: In the high-rise construction industry, the highest importance coefficient was devoted to personal factors. According to the results of the hierarchical analysis, recklessness, low level of consciousness, unsafe practices and poor safety supervision were known as the most important causes of falling from height hazard. Conclusion: Comparing the results with the past research and validating the model by asking from the assessment group, demonstrated that the proposed method is reliable and useful. Since falling from height is the most important risk in construction sites, safety managers of high-rise projects can employ this method and also use the factors identified in this study for safety assessment and mitigating falling from height hazard in this group of projects.