Design of a Portable Safety Database for Construction

Details

• Personal Author:
  Freund A ; Zuckerman N
• Description:
  The goal of this study was to bring together labor unions and employers in the New York City construction industry to design a portable health and safety database that can be used to keep track of personal protective equipment tests, results of medical surveillance, and safety and health training certifications. A portable database is a database that is "carried" with a worker from job to job, in the same way that their cards or paperwork would be. By making the database internet-accessible by any participating employer, contractors can rely on training and personal protection that was provided by an approved organization (such as an apprenticeship training program). They can speed the hiring process, avoid duplication of effort, and compare hearing tests from one job to the next. We held a series of meetings with some of the major construction union and contractor organizations to compile information on what databases were currently in use and what they saw as the major advantages and obstacles of compiling a shared database. We also compiled information on some of the shared construction and health and safety databases in other parts of the country. Although we did not manage to get buy-in from trade unions and contractors city-wide, we were successful in identifying a key union, Laborers International Union of North America Local 78, and their corresponding contractors' association, who are interested and committed to developing a shared database in 2012. We worked with Local 78, which represents 4,000 laborers who handle lead, asbestos, and other hazardous materials; and the Environmental Contractors Association, which represents 49 environmental remediation companies in the New York area, to create an initial design. Several relevant enforcement agencies agreed to cooperate on the project in the future. We believe this database could be a demonstration project for others in the construction industry. We developed a model of how the database would be accessed from a smart phone or other electronic device. Contractor, member and administrator screens can be observed by clicking on the following link and clicking on any links that are colored brown: http://safetycred.c-arts.com/. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Construction Industry Database Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Software
• Keywords:
  Computer Software Construction Industry Construction Workers Databases Mobile Equipment Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment PPE Surveillance
• Publisher:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; New York ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 3 ; Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-79
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20058016
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, 2012 May; :1-79
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Design of a portable safety database for construction
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:49196d4d3f609e0e355f822550920ee146538b7b8f8c968a8ee45933699e3b71527f37c3003801f95bb399304e253a3e9ce296f335aab3a12f975424267c2492
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/215209/cdc_215209_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 822.26 KB ]