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Economic development and construction safety research: a bibliometrics approach

  • Fansong Luo
    ,
  • Rita Yi Man Li
    ,
  • M. James C. Crabbe
    ,
  • Ruihui Pu
  • Hong Kong Shue Yan University
    ,
  • University of Oxford
    ,
  • Shanxi University
    ,
  • Srinakharinwirot University
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
    SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
    SDG 13 Climate Action

Abstract

The construction industry contributes significantly to economic development worldwide, yet it is one of the most hazardous industries where numerous accidents and fatalities happen every year. Little research to date has shed light on the impact of economic development on construction safety research. In this paper, we conduct an analysis of construction safety articles published in the 21st century via a bibliometrics approach. We have analysed: (1) construction safety in developed and developing countries; (2) the major organisations that have conducted construction safety research; (3) authors and territories of the research and (4) topics in construction safety and future research directions. The largest number of published construction safety documents were published by scholars from the US and China; the total number of published articles by these two countries was 1,125, at 56% of the 2000 articles that were published. Both countries showed high levels of research collaboration. While our results suggest that economic development may drive academic construction safety research, there has been an increase in construction safety research conducted by developing countries in recent years, probably due to an improvement in their economic development. While authors’ keywords evidenced the popularity of research on safety management and climate, the network analysis on all keywords, i.e. keywords given by Web of Science and authors, suggest that construction safety research focused on three areas: construction safety management, the relationship between people and construction safety, and the protection and health of workers’ impact on construction safety. We found that there is a new interdisciplinary research trend where construction safety combines with digital technologies, with the largest number involving deep learning. Other trends focus on machine learning, Building Information Modelling, machine learning and visualisation.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Article number

105519

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Safety Science (Volume 145, Issue 105519)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 23/09/2021
  • Published - 14/10/2021

Publication status

Published - 14/10/2021

ISSN

0925-7535

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/625114
  • Scopus: 85116599282

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