Chapter 15 Controlling exposure to physical hazards

Construction sites are notorious for being fraught with physical hazards, largely as a result of the nature of construction activities themselves as well as the management of these activities and the physical environments in which they occur. Exposure to these hazards continues almost unabated despite increasingly restrictive legislative frameworks in most countries. For example, in 2013 in the UK alone an estimated 76 000 construction workers of which 31 000 were new cases suffered from an illness that was either caused or made worse as a result of working in the construction industry. Furthermore, about 1.7 million working days were consequently lost.