Keywords: Construction safety, hazard recognition, hazard identification, hazard recognition, safety risk

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INTRODUCTION
The construction industry continues to account fora disproportionate number of occupational fatal and nonfatal injuries. (Ho et al., 2000; Findley et al., 2004). In the last decade, despite continual safety efforts, the construction sector has decelerated in terms of improvement in injury rates. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics (2012), the US construction sector has been responsible for more than a thousand fatal injuries every year between 1995 and 2008. In 2011, construction workers accounted fora fatality rate of 9.1 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, as opposed to the all-worker fatality rate of 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers (BLS, 2011). Similarly, nonfatal injuries rates were 3.9 per 100 full-time workers for construction, whereas the all industry nonfatal injury rates were 3.8 per 100 full-time workers
(BLS, 2011). These injury statistics clearly show that construction workers are more likely to be killed or injured than workers inmost other industries. Traditionally, the construction industry has taken a reactive approach to safety. Accordingly, problems associated with an organization’s safety program are only apparent when there is an increase in the number of injuries. With increased financial implications associated with occupational injuries and the emerging pursuit of zero incident projects, construction professionals are exploring the implementation of innovative safety strategies (Baud, 2012; Blake, 2012; Navon and Kolton, 2007) that can be introduced early in the project development process (Goetsch, 1996; Holt, 2001). The fundamental goal of an effective safety program is to eliminate or reduce safety risk before work begins. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to identify as many hazards as possible

13 prior to commencing work. Unrecognized hazards may have the potential to lead to unanticipated catastrophic accidents. Unfortunately, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2012) and Carter and Smith (2006), a large proportion of construction hazards are not recognized because of the dynamic nature of the industry and task unpredictability (Bobick, 2004). Carter and Smith (2006), in their assessment of method statements of three projects, determined that the percentage of hazard recognized ranged between
66.5% to This often leads to the implementation of a safety programs that are inadequate to manage actual safety risk. Workers who are notable to perceive safety hazards will be unable to respond or behave safely due to their ignorance of consequences that may result from their actions (Laurence, 2005; Sneddon et al., 2004). In this study innovative and promising site-based hazard recognition program elements were identified through literature review, and brainstorming sessions with an expert panel of construction safety professionals, and these elements were prioritized using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT). Consensus analysis was performed to verify consistency and agreement within the expert panel. The results can be used by practitioners to strategically identify potential hazard recognition strategies that complement existing methods. It is suggested that future research focuses on further investigating the most promising strategies by testing them with active crews, measuring their effectiveness, and determining the most cost-effective methods that could potentially become industry standard.

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