@article{uddin_albert_pradhananga_ganapati_prajapati_2023, title={Health and Safety Challenges Among Post-Disaster Reconstruction Workers}, volume={23}, ISSN={["1837-9133"]}, DOI={10.5130/AJCEB.v23i1/2.8441}, abstractNote={With the increase in the number of natural disasters in recent years, post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) efforts have become increasingly important to aid community recovery. Accordingly, a large body of recent research has focused on identifying the best practices for accelerating recovery and restoring impacted communities. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to the health and safety challenges experienced by reconstruction workers that aid post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts. The current investigation focused on addressing this knowledge gap by seeking to uncover the health and safety challenges that reconstruction workers experienced in the context of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal – that was responsible for nearly 9,000 deaths and 22,000 injuries. The data collection effort involved in-depth interviews with several stakeholders, including construction workers, supervisors, site engineers, general contractors, homeowners, and governmental officials. This study enhances our understanding of the health and safety challenges experienced by PDR workers. The study also offers insight on how the obtained knowledge can be leveraged by government and stakeholders with supervisory roles to ensure proper health, safety, and wellbeing of the reconstruction workers. }, number={1-2}, journal={CONSTRUCTION ECONOMICS AND BUILDING}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Pradhananga, Nipesh and Ganapati, Nazife Emel and Prajapati, Jeetendra}, year={2023}, month={Jul}, pages={4–30} }
 @article{uddin_albert_ovid_alsharef_2023, title={Leveraging ChatGPT to Aid Construction Hazard Recognition and Support Safety Education and Training}, volume={15}, ISSN={["2071-1050"]}, DOI={10.3390/su15097121}, abstractNote={Proper hazard recognition is fundamental to effective safety management in construction workplaces. Nevertheless, poor hazard recognition levels are a widespread and persistent problem in the construction industry. For example, recent investigations have demonstrated that a significant number of workplace hazards often remain unrecognized in construction workplaces. These unrecognized workplace hazards often remain unmanaged and can potentially translate into devastating and unexpected safety incidents. Therefore, interventions targeted at improving hazard recognition levels are foundational to enhancing safety management in construction workplaces. The main objective of the current investigation was to examine if ChatGPT, a language model recently launched by OpenAI, can aid hazard recognition when integrated into the curriculum of students pursuing a career in the construction industry. The investigation was carried out as an experimental effort with 42 students enrolled in the construction program at a major state university in the United States. First, prior to the introduction of ChatGPT as an intervention, the pre-intervention hazard recognition ability of the students was measured. Next, ChatGPT and its capabilities were introduced to the students in a classroom setting. Guidance was also offered on how the students could leverage ChatGPT to aid hazard recognition efforts. Finally, the post-intervention hazard recognition ability of the students was measured and compared against their earlier performance. The result suggests that ChatGPT can be leveraged to improve hazard recognition levels. Accordingly, integrating ChatGPT as part of safety education and training can yield benefits and prepare the next generation of construction professionals for industry success.}, number={9}, journal={SUSTAINABILITY}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Ovid, Anto and Alsharef, Abdullah}, year={2023}, month={Apr} }
 @inproceedings{uddin_alsharef_albert_bhandari_2022, title={Construction Hazard Recognition: A Smart Literature Review}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784483985.042}, DOI={10.1061/9780784483985.042}, abstractNote={Poor hazard recognition is a significant safety issue in the construction industry. Past research efforts have focused on assessing, developing, and improving the hazard recognition skill of construction workers. However, much of this useful information is fragmented and dispersed across the broader literature. The current article focuses on summarizing the state of the science and identifying future opportunities to combat poor hazard recognition in the construction industry. This study adopted a three-level “smart literature review” approach unlike traditional literature reviews. To locate relevant research, keyword searches that included “construction hazard recognition” or “construction hazard identification” were performed in the Scopus database. After a two-round screening process, 168 relevant documents were selected for further analysis. Finally, this study leveraged a machine learning algorithm, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), to perform the content analysis. The analysis resulted in eight separate topics that have been discussed in the broader construction hazard recognition literature. The research findings will serve as a resource for researchers and construction leaders to better understand the state of the science on construction hazard recognition and identify potential directions for future research opportunities.}, booktitle={Construction Research Congress 2022}, publisher={American Society of Civil Engineers}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Alsharef, Abdullah and Albert, Alex and Bhandari, Siddharth}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @inproceedings{alsharef_uddin_albert_bhandari_jaselskis_2022, title={Construction Safety Training Interventions: State of the Science and Future Opportunities}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784483985.054}, DOI={10.1061/9780784483985.054}, abstractNote={Construction safety training interventions are widely adopted to enhance workplace safety and reduce injury rates. Unfortunately, desirable levels of safety performance or return on investments have not been achieved in practice as per previous research. To address this issue, a large body of research has focused on designing, developing, and testing construction safety training interventions. These efforts have significantly advanced our understanding of how training can be leveraged to enhance safety outcomes. However, this large body of research is fragmented and dispersed across various sources. This paper provides a concise synthesis of research related to safety training interventions and answers the following questions: (1) what type of training interventions have been designed, developed, and tested; (2) what safety outcomes the interventions have sought to target; (3) how the target safety outcomes were measured; and (4) what the future opportunities as per the study findings. This paper will be beneficial to industry stakeholders and professional safety trainers interested in improving safety performance through greater awareness of intervention programs. The article will also serve as a resource to academic researchers interested in the state of the science as it pertains to construction safety training. Practitioners may use the findings to improve training effectiveness in practice, and academic researchers may build upon the findings to develop more robust safety training interventions.}, booktitle={Construction Research Congress 2022}, publisher={American Society of Civil Engineers}, author={Alsharef, Abdullah and Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Bhandari, Siddharth and Jaselskis, Edward}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @inproceedings{uddin_tamanna_albert_pradhananga_2022, title={Leveraging Natural Language Processing to Identify Health and Safety Challenges during Post-Disaster Reconstruction}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784483985.029}, DOI={10.1061/9780784483985.029}, abstractNote={Post-disaster reconstruction efforts are becoming increasingly more important with the increase in natural disasters in recent years. These efforts support rapid recovery and are fundamental to the resilience of the impacted communities. However, such efforts that involve complex activities in difficult and uncertain environments impose considerable health and safety challenges. The health and safety challenges are particularly heightened in the context of developing nations that lack necessary resources as compared to their more developed counterparts. An understanding of the health and safety challenges in the context of these developing nations is fundamental to the development of health and safety best practices that support effective and rapid recovery. This study examines the health and safety challenges as reported by stakeholders impacted in the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal. The data were captured using a set of semi-structured interviews with several stakeholders that include general contractors, owners, government officials, engineers, supervisors, and workers. After transcribing the interviews as textual data, a popular and frequently used topic modeling algorithm, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), was adopted to unveil health and safety related themes as reported by the stakeholders. The findings of the study identify the major health and safety related challenges in the context of a post-disaster reconstruction effort and will serve as the foundation for future research efforts that focus on health and safety management solutions. The findings of the study can also be used by the governments and stakeholders with supervisory role to create a safer work-environment for the reconstruction workers.}, booktitle={Construction Research Congress 2022}, publisher={American Society of Civil Engineers}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Tamanna, Mahzabin and Albert, Alex and Pradhananga, Nipesh}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @article{uddin_albert_tamanna_alsharef_2022, title={YouTube as a source of information: early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the construction industry}, volume={12}, ISSN={["1466-433X"]}, DOI={10.1080/01446193.2022.2162096}, abstractNote={Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has been the largest global crisis in recent decades. Apart from the countless deaths and health emergencies, the pandemic has disrupted several industries—including construction. For example, a significant number of construction projects have been interrupted, delayed, and even abandoned. In such emergencies, information gathering and dissemination are vital for effective crisis management. The role of social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, as information sources, in these contexts has received much attention. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate if YouTube can serve as a useful source of information for the construction industry in emergency situations—such as during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment was undertaken by distilling the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the construction industry from the content shared via YouTube by leveraging Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling. The investigation also compared the timeline with which relevant content was shared via YouTube and peer-reviewed research articles to make relative assessments. The findings suggest that YouTube offered significant and relevant coverage across six topics that include health and safety challenges, ongoing construction operation updates, workforce-related challenges, industry operations-related guidelines and advocacy, and others. Moreover, compared to the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the research literature, YouTube offered more comprehensive and timely coverage of the pandemic as it relates to the construction industry. Accordingly, industry stakeholders may leverage YouTube as a valuable and largely untapped resource to aid in combating similar emergency situations.}, journal={CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Tamanna, Mahzabin and Alsharef, Abdullah}, year={2022}, month={Dec} }
 @article{alsharef_banerjee_uddin_albert_jaselskis_2021, title={Early Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the United States Construction Industry}, volume={18}, ISSN={["1660-4601"]}, url={https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1559}, DOI={10.3390/ijerph18041559}, abstractNote={The COVID-19 pandemic has been the largest global health crisis in decades. Apart from the unprecedented number of deaths and hospitalizations, the pandemic has resulted in economic slowdowns, widespread business disruptions, and significant hardships. This study focused on investigating the early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. construction industry since the declaration of the national emergency on 13 March 2020. The study objectives were achieved through 34 telephone interviews with project managers, engineers, designers, and superintendents that represented different states and distinct industry sectors in the United States (U.S.). The interviewees offered information on their experience with the pandemic, including the general and adverse effects experienced, new opportunities created, and risk management efforts being undertaken. The reported adverse effects included significant delays on projects, inability to secure materials on time, reduction in productivity rates, material price escalations, and others. The new opportunities that were created included projects involving the fast-track construction of medical facilities, construction of residential buildings, transportation-related work, and opportunities to recruit skilled workers. The risk management measures that were widely adopted included measures to enhance safety and reduce other project risks. The safety measures adopted included requiring employees to wear cloth face masks, adoption of social distancing protocols, staggering of construction operations, offering COVID-19-related training, administering temperature checks prior to entry into the workplace, and others. Measures to manage other project risks included the formation of a task force team to review the evolving pandemic and offer recommendations, advocating that construction businesses be deemed essential to combat delays and taking advantage of government relief programs. The study findings will be useful to industry stakeholders interested in understanding the early impacts of the pandemic on the construction industry. Industry stakeholders may also build upon the reported findings and establish best practices for continued safe and productive operations.}, number={4}, journal={INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH}, publisher={MDPI AG}, author={Alsharef, Abdullah and Banerjee, Siddharth and Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Jaselskis, Edward}, year={2021}, month={Feb} }
 @article{uddin_ganapati_pradhananga_prajapati_albert_2021, title={Is the Workers' Health and Safety Scenario Different in Post-Disaster Reconstruction from Conventional Construction? A Case Study in Bhaktapur, Nepal}, volume={64}, ISSN={["2212-4209"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102529}, DOI={10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102529}, abstractNote={The present study aims to understand the health and safety scenario for reconstruction workers and to differentiate between post disaster reconstruction (PDR) operations and conventional construction operations as it relates to the workers’ health and safety. The context of the study is Bhaktapur, Nepal, which was impacted by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. The study is based on in-depth interviews with stakeholders (n = 38) and triangulated with a review of secondary sources, including laws and regulations and newspapers. The findings suggest that the health and safety scenario of PDR operations differ from conventional construction operations in five broad ways: (1) debris management, (2) workforce management, (3) work environment, (4) perceived urgency to complete reconstruction, and (5) safety risk perception. The findings of this study show how construction workers in PDR operations face unique challenges and higher exposure to construction hazards at work compared to conventional construction. The study presents practical recommendations for governments in the Global South related to debris removal, training for construction stakeholders, technical assistance, enforcement of labor laws, and awareness campaigns for affected populations.}, journal={INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION}, publisher={Elsevier BV}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Ganapati, Nazife Emel and Pradhananga, Nipesh and Prajapati, Jeetendra and Albert, Alex}, year={2021}, month={Oct} }
 @article{alsharef_albert_uddin_kittur_chavan_jaselskis_2021, title={Work-related safety incidents among driver license examiners}, volume={140}, ISSN={["1879-1042"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105304}, DOI={10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105304}, abstractNote={Driver license examiners serve as the first line of defense against unsafe drivers and driving practices. Nonetheless, these examiners themselves are exposed to high levels of safety risk as they test new drivers – with limited driving proficiency and experience. A deeper understanding of the safety incidents that driver license examiners experience can inform the development of effective injury prevention policies and interventions. Towards achieving this goal, the current study focused on performing exploratory content analyses of safety incident reports maintained by the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) that involved driver license examiners. Apart from demonstrating that numerous incidents are experienced during driving tests, the five key findings include the following: (1) The most common event types that driver license examiners experience are collision with fixed object, overexertion and physical bodily reaction, and collision with another vehicle; (2) The most common contributing factors are failure to maintain control of vehicle and incidents experienced while examiners are exiting the vehicle; (3) Most incidents that result in injury involve injuries to multiple body parts, followed by injuries to the back, leg, and neck; (4) The most common injury types are strain, sprain, and bruising and contusion; (5) The injury outcomes are medical case, permanent disability, report only, and temporary disability. The results also reveal particular relationships that are overrepresented in the incident reports. For example, collision with fixed object is associated particularly with failure to maintain control of vehicle. The findings can inform future efforts that seek to reduce injury rates among driver license examiners.}, journal={SAFETY SCIENCE}, publisher={Elsevier BV}, author={Alsharef, Abdullah and Albert, Alex and Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Kittur, Nikhil Basavaraj and Chavan, Sampada and Jaselskis, Edward}, year={2021}, month={Aug} }
 @article{uddin_albert_alsharef_pandit_patil_nnaji_2020, title={Hazard Recognition Patterns Demonstrated by Construction Workers}, volume={17}, ISSN={["1660-4601"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217788}, DOI={10.3390/ijerph17217788}, abstractNote={Construction workers fail to recognize a large number of safety hazards. These unrecognized safety hazards can lead to unintended hazard exposure and tragic safety incidents. Unfortunately, traditional hazard recognition interventions (e.g., job hazard analyses and safety training) have been unable to tackle the industry-wide problem of poor hazard recognition levels. In fact, emerging evidence has demonstrated that traditional hazard recognition interventions have been designed without a proper understanding of the challenges workers experience during hazard recognition efforts. Interventions and industry-wide efforts designed based on a more thorough understanding of these challenges can yield substantial benefits—including superior hazard recognition levels and lower injury rates. Towards achieving this goal, the current investigation focused on identifying hazard categories that workers are more proficient in recognizing and others that they are less proficient in recognizing (i.e., hazard recognition patterns). For the purpose of the current study, hazards were classified on the basis of the energy source per Haddon’s energy release theory (e.g., gravity, motion, electrical, chemical, etc.). As part of the study, 287 workers representing 57 construction workplaces in the United States were engaged in a hazard recognition activity. Apart from confirming previous research findings that workers fail to recognize a disproportionate number of safety hazards, the results demonstrate that the workers are more proficient in recognizing certain hazard types. More specifically, the workers on average recognized roughly 47% of the safety hazards in the gravity, electrical, motion, and temperature hazard categories while only recognizing less than 10% of the hazards in the pressure, chemical, and radiation hazard categories. These findings can inform the development of more robust interventions and industry-wide initiatives to tackle the issue of poor hazard recognition levels in the construction industry.}, number={21}, journal={INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH}, publisher={MDPI AG}, author={Uddin, S. M. Jamil and Albert, Alex and Alsharef, Abdullah and Pandit, Bhavana and Patil, Yashwardhan and Nnaji, Chukwuma}, year={2020}, month={Nov} }