Mohammad Tanvi Newaz

The construction industry has always been lagging behind with the development con-cerning worker health, safety and well-being due to an inherently anarchic nature and a non-conformal culture. However, less effort has been put toward reviewing these critical areas along with newly arising issues, gaps and areas of further research for its better implementation to achieve enhanced regulatory compliance. This study executed the scientometric review to gauge the level of research productivity and knowledge on Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety and Welfare between 1952 and 2025 with the help of the PRISMA research design. The efforts are concentrated through co-authorships and co-occurring keyword and co-citation analyses, as well as via cross-referencing with respective countries and years of publication, which will sketch out the key development of this discipline. Revealing critically important analysis through quantitative methods of scientometric mapping for several bibliographic rec-ords, 878 extracted from the Scopus database. Nonetheless, the Safety Science journal has been the main repository of publications. The study intended to share a broad exami-nation of the environmental exposure scenario and preliminary advancements on health and safety practices in the construction industry. New linkages and future trends in construction-related occupation were alluded to in this research. This work serves a significant reference of good intellectual intervention direction and policy to improve worker safety and health in the construction industry. The study also came up with a proposed framework on occupational health, safety, and wellbeing within the con-struction industry and focused on compliance with regulations and organizational structures.

Organisational factors are widely recognised as contributors to mining accidents, yet their influence on routine risk management before incidents occur remains insufficiently understood. This study examined how organisational factors shape workplace risk management practices in a large Australian mining operation. A qualitative, single-site ethnographic case study was conducted over 24 months. Data were generated through participant observation, 42 formal and informal research interactions, and analysis of organisational documents, and were interpreted using symbolic interactionism, socio-technical systems thinking and safety culture theory. Seven interrelated organisational factors were identified: safety leadership, supervision, communication, resource allocation, management decisions, the organisational approach to risk management, and learning from incidents. These factors influenced how hazards were perceived, controls were implemented and verified, residual risk was judged, concerns were escalated, and incident lessons were transferred into practice. Formal risk management and critical-control systems provided important structure, but their effectiveness depended on competent supervision, meaningful worker participation, adequate resources, credible communication and consistent application under changing operational conditions. Control effectiveness was therefore found to be a dynamic organisational outcome rather than a static property of documented systems. The findings extend predominantly retrospective mining-safety research by showing how human and organisational factors operate prospectively in everyday work. Strengthening supervisory capability, residual-risk assurance, workforce engagement and learning from control degradation may improve the reliability of risk controls and help prevent serious and fatal incidents in high-risk mining operations.

Despite its important socio-economic contributions, the Australian construction industry has a poor WHS record. Efforts to improve WHS tend to focus on and be led by, large organisations due to the resources that they have and their ability to capitalise on the economies of scale in their operation. However, it is important to realise that 97% of construction organisations are small businesses, employing fewer than 20 people and their WHS outcomes are worse than the WHS outcomes in large organisations. They are also hard to reach through conventional communication strategies. This indicates that current WHS best practice initiatives are not being well translated and followed by small construction businesses, and subsequently that they need further pathways to develop their capability to improve WHS. This research reveals the barriers to improving the WHS in small construction businesses and presents a critical literature analysis emphasising the development of a WHS maturity framework specifically for Australian small construction businesses. This paper is part of a broader research project that, following this integrative review, will create a maturity model via primary data collected from practitioners, WHS representatives, workers, and owners of small businesses. This model will then be trialled with five micro and small businesses, and an industry toolkit will be developed to promote a step-by-step process to improve safety practices.

Previous research has enabled construction professionals to consider appropriate mental health interventions for improved mental health outcomes. However, the heterogeneity of such interventions in contemporary studies makes it difficult for practitioners to keep up to date with relevant alternatives. Thus, the aim of this research is to critically analyse mental health risk factors and identify strategies intended to mitigate risks and promote employees’ mental health in the construction industry. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was employed following PRISMA guidelines, and 58 articles that met the inclusion criteria were selected for data synthesis. In total, 100 risk factors and 76 preventive strategies were extracted and clustered into a taxonomy consisting of an individual level, workgroup level and organisational level. Strategies were further evaluated based on the type of prevention and financial significance. A critical content analysis of selected studies can suggest recommendations for future research, including the gap in mental health studies in the construction industry as well as the need for empirical research emphasis on generic forms of risks and strategies to cover more individual (e.g., age, profession), workgroup (e.g., team, trade, project) and organisational (e.g., culture, policy) factors that appropriately fit into construction workplace settings. The findings herein can broaden the mental health knowledge of industry practitioners, and could assist in mental health-related decision-making by developing best practices for boosting the mental wellbeing of the construction workforce.

Safety management research in construction is pervasive, therefore, a systematic review and a bibliometric mapping process that provides an overview of how recent mainstream research topics are conceptually structured is timely. Undertaking systematic mapping, contemporaneous with a scoping review of construction safety management research, can contribute to a better understanding of research outcomes and predominant topics. This study employed VOSviewer as a bibliometric tool to identify co-author citations, as well as the co-occurrence of key terms within the title, abstract and keywords of the articles. A total of 180 representative studies published in 21 peer-reviewed journals between January 2010 and November 2021 were analysed. A systematic literature review identified a significant focus on conceptualizing safety climate and safety behaviour with a growing interest in applying advanced technologies for improved safety management. Two perspectives were recognized in safety research, i.e. process-driven and people-driven, with the former focussing on accident causation while the latter on underlying the active role of workers’ involvement in safety outcomes. An in-depth discussion of the findings revealed seven trending research domains: safety systems; safety skills; accident causation; safety leadership and communications; safety behaviour and attitude; safety climate and culture; and practices for improving safety performance. This review identified an emerging interest in seeking effective leadership styles and psychological interventions to promote safety culture and behaviour. In terms of practical implications, this study found opportunities to address the gap between theory and practice by adopting systems thinking and using IT for improving safety performance in construction projects.