Occupational Health Risk Assessment T-Test

In general meaning of the risk can be defined as ―action that endangers something what has a value‖. Construction sector is one of the most influenced segments of the unorganized labor in our country. Recently, Indian construction industry has experienced considerable growth in construction activities. The high rate of urbanization and Infrastructure development in India shows the demand of residential & commercial consumers. This results as increase in number of construction Projects by creating an employment opportunity for wide range of labor force such as skilled worker, semi-skilled worker & unskilled worker. The sector is labor-intensive and including indirect jobs, provides employment to more than 35 million men power. Throughout the world, most adults and many children spend much of their waking hours at completing task associated with work. Work gives a number of income sources and other remuneration. Despite its importance, construction sites have been regarded as very risky areas where construction workers are subject to fatalities and ill-health problems. Many building construction activities are inherently risky to health and safety of workers. It affects to productivity & overall performance of construction project & diminishing the workforce/labor force etc. Efforts are focused towards finding solution to assess risk at construction projects. Risk assessment is one of the integral parts of occupational health and safety management plan. Risk assessment helps to find out causes of risk as well as create awareness of risk and hazards and also finds who may be at risk. The idea to assess risk even at the comparatively smaller construction activities like construction of residential and commercial high rise building complexes is found new but important and determination of occupational health risk assessment is found essentially needed in future.

Factors affecting occupational health risk during construction are identified from literatures & also with the help of experts in the field of construction. Total 12 factors was identified, e.g. Workers instincts, workers capabilities, communication between the workers and between workers and supervisors, condition of tools & equipments, safety culture, etc. The factors are then listed & grouped in 12 factors. Then finally regrouped into 5 main groups as shown in fig 1.

Problems arising from workers or the work team, especially worker actions or behavior and worker capabilities, unsafe acts, safety being overlooked in the context of heavy workloads and other priorities, workers taking shortcuts to save effort and time, etc.

Workplace oriented factors includes poor housekeeping and problems with the site layout and space availability, lack of clearly defined walkways, constantly changing workplace and work activities, poor site conditions such as uneven ground or debris &muddy conditions, inadequate space or difficult access to perform a task & weather conditions during construction activities, etc. typically causes slip and trip hazards, etc.

Deficiencies with the suitability and condition of materials, including packaging, hazards were either inherent to the materials, as with the extremely heavy. Materials packaging can also cause problems with disposal, leading to other hazards introduced onto site (e.g. fall or fire hazards). Suppliers have to paid attention to the manual handling requirements of some materials, through the introduction of smaller cement bags, etc.

A number of the hazards in past occurred due to tools & equipment‘s on construction site. Some of the incidents involved struck by machinery/vehicle, contact with hand held tools, vibration, etc. Injuries in several accidents arise from individuals striking their head or other body part against machinery. These hazards either due to poor configuration, site constraints or equipment limitations, etc. hazards are the high level source of the nature, extent and existence of immediate causes of accidents. Some researchers referred it as ‗root causes‘. It seems very clear that these causes do affect safety on construction sites. Many construction firms ignored risk assessment for the accident activities, despite this being a legal requirement, even for activities ‗off-task‘. Also, need of education & training exists across the industry, encompassing designers and suppliers, as well as site-based personnel, to raise awareness and understanding of the occupational health risks that are commonplace in construction.

In present study of assessment of risk causes, field survey was conducted to get actual information regarding site situation, hazards occurred on site and factors affecting workers health. 42 sites in pune, satara, sangli & Kolhapur region selected for field survey and were conducted by distribution and collection of forms from experts for identification of important factors causing risk in construction and probabilities of various risk on site during construction activities and its impact also required data for this research taken from previous studies conducted on occupational health risk, risk assessment models, published papers and other related literature. five point rating scale were used in Data collected from experts in form of questionnaires for finding relative importance index and t-test analysis which consist of 1-very low impact,2-low impact,3-average impact,4-high impact,5-very high impact. Data obtained from experts was then analyzed using Relative importance index and T-test. Relative Importance Index method helps to determine the relative importance of the each factors affecting to occupational health risk which is given by Where, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. are rating scale, n1, n2, n3, n4, n5, etc. are no. of respondents. T-Test decides which cause is more impacting on the project work. Mean of the population of 12 causes is μ nearly equal to 2.8 making on an average impact on construction project work due to occupational health risk for western Maharashtra. Here T-Test decides which cause is more impacting on the project work and it is calculated below.

S.D of mean S.E of = 0.14872 H0 : Very nearly the average impact on the project Case 1: t = ∣∣ < 1.96 then H0 is true Accept it at 5% level that means there is less impact of those cases. Case 2: t = ∣∣ > 1.96 then H0 is False Reject it at 5% level of significance than risk factor is significantly dominant making effect.

Data obtained from experts was then analyzed using Relative importance index and T-test. The results are tabulated as below

Table 1 shows RII for twelve risk factor. Factor Worker instinct has relative importance index value 53.20 and got rank 10th. It has mean score 2.66 in likerts 5 point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Workers Capability has Relative Importance Index value 58.20 and got rank 3rd.It has mean score 2.91. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on Construction. Factor Communication has Relative Importance Index value 55.60 and got rank 7th.It has mean score 2.78. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Supervision has Relative Importance Index value 57.80 and got rank 4th.It has mean score 2.89. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average

occupies place between average impact and high impact on construction. Factor Site condition and housekeeping has Relative Importance Index value 53.60 and got rank 9th.It has mean score 2.68. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Quality Of material has Relative Importance Index value 53.00 and got rank 11th. It has mean score 2.65. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Visibility of Tools and Equipment has Relative Importance Index value 55.40 and got rank 8th.It has mean score 2.77 which is in between 2 & 3 place of likerts scale so it makes average impact on construction. Factor Condition of Tools and Equipments has Relative Importance Index value 61.80 and got rank 1st.It has mean score 3.09. According to likerts five point scale it has got high impact on construction. Factor Risk consideration Factor has Relative Importance Index value 51.60 and got rank 12th.It has mean score 2.78. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Safety Culture has Relative Importance Index value 56.20 and got rank 6th.It has mean score 2.81. In likerts five point scale it occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Factor Project Management has Relative Importance Index value 56.60 and got rank 5th. It has mean score 2.83. In likerts five point scale it also occupies place between low impact and average impact on construction. Table 2 shows T-test analysis which shows that which risk factor has high impact on construction and which risk factor has low impact factor.

The first three causes at construction project that contribute for making construction site unsafe are conditions of tools and equipments is 1st risk factor, Workers Health 2nd risk factor and Workers Capability is 3rd risk factor. The severity of individual risk cause within twelve factors is given by T-test rated as high or low.

Authors are thankful to Prof. B. V. Birajdar for encouragement and valuable guidance all the time.

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Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, NESGI, Pune Maharashtra, India