Investigating the effectiveness of fall prevention plan and success factors for program-based safety interventions

• FPP increased commitment, and clarified responsibilities and competency requirements.
• Issues include inadequate implementation, specificity, competency and commitment.
• FPP documentation should be reduced.
• Focus FPP on roles and responsibilities, risk assessment and monitoring.

Fall from height (FFH) is a perennial problem in the construction industry across many countries. In Singapore, construction worksites are required to develop and implement a fall prevention plan (FPP) to eliminate and mitigate the risk of fall hazards. The FPP is a document that records information such as fall prevention policy, roles and responsibilities, fall risk assessment, and emergency response. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of FPP in reducing the risk of FFH accidents and to identify the underlying factors influencing the success of a program-based safety intervention. A mixed method approach involving an exploratory site visit, 4 interviews, a questionnaire survey with 93 complete respondents, and content analysis of 17 FPP was conducted. In addition, an ordinal regression was conducted on the questionnaire survey data. The analyses indicate that FPP was perceived as an effective intervention because it requires clear allocation of responsibilities, increases the commitment to fall prevention and made competency requirements explicit. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of the FPP is limited by issues such as failure to implement the FPP, lack of contextualisation to site situations, lack of competency of frontline supervisors and workers, inadequate cooperation from sub-contractors and insufficient management commitment. The study provided empirical data to support insights on the underlying success factors for program-based safety interventions. The study raised concerns about the phenomenon of “paper exercise”, where documents were created to satisfy safety requirements, but do not meet the intent of management or regulators. Further research on the phenomenon was recommended.