A Literature Review of Behavioral Economics in the Construction Industry: Use of Choice Architecture Techniques to Accelerate Acceptance and Adoption of Safety and Health Research Findings and Solutions

Details

• Personal Author:
  Barlet G ; Betit, Eileen ; Echt, Alan S. ; Sarpy, Sue A.
• Description:
  The construction industry continues to experience one of the highest rates of occupational injuries and illnesses of any U.S. industry. The challenge facing safety and health researchers, particularly those involved in translation research, is accelerating acceptance and adoption of evidence-based solutions (e.g., equipment, work practices) that can improve the industry's safety record. To address this challenge, researchers need to know how best to influence the safety and health choices made by those selecting the equipment and work practices to use on construction sites and the intended users. Simply put, each day decisions are made that impact safety and health on construction projects (e.g., equipment purchases, provision and use of personal protection and training, use of work practices). Behavioral economics, a relatively new field of study that combines insights from psychology and economics, may have promise for influencing these safety and health decisions. Behavioral economics acknowledges that decisions are made that may not be in an organization's or individual's best interest. It provides choice architecture techniques or nudges that can be used to design an environment that increases the likelihood that more informed and thereby better decisions will be made. This literature review examined the extent to which behavioral economics concepts and related choice architecture techniques have been used to influence safety or health decisions in the construction industry and other occupational settings. The review utilized a common typology to categorize the choice architecture techniques (decision information; decision structure; decision assistance) and included an expanded scope of occupational safety and health interventions. Worth noting is that the current review is not a behavior-based safety literature review. While the word behavior is used in both fields of study, too often it is misused or interpreted to place responsibility for outcomes on those (workers) with the least influence over the many decisions that lead to the use or absence of safety equipment and practices. We have used terminology that focuses on decisions when describing the studies in this literature review (e.g., physicians' prescribing or hygiene practices; individuals' healthy food choices; workers' use of ergonomic lifting practices). It should also be noted that behavioral economics techniques are already widely used in the construction industry. Examples include hard hat stickers and posters with safety messages (reminders, social norms) and planning tools that promote best practices and take contractors step-by-step through developing safety plans (prompts, increase/decrease physical effort, and social norms). However, as this literature review found, relatively few studies have been conducted in the construction industry that identify the behavioral economic concepts used, and importantly, that assess their effectiveness and impact on influencing safety-and health-related decisions. This literature review did, however, include studies and evidence from other workplace settings that suggest the relevance and potential benefits of using choice architecture techniques to supplement and complement construction safety and health interventions (equipment, training, work practices), motivate decision-makers to use them, and, as a result, accelerate the acceptance and adoption of related interventions to reduce occupational injuries and illnesses. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Behavior Construction Industry Decision Making Economics Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Construction Industry Decision Making Injury Prevention Intervention Effectiveness Safety Research
• Publisher:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-103
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067612
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, 2021 Nov; :1-103
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• 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:
  A literature review of behavioral economics in the construction industry: use of choice architecture techniques to accelerate acceptance and adoption of safety and health research findings and solutions
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:985eb80bb5e7602136bcd74d5867a05fa5a0ac7a51338ee76731d27b115a68fc15fe2502f5ce551b70e43edd1cafec78af01a71ba7c345bdccfcc22cab0d3105
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230871/cdc_230871_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.10 MB ]