A new approach to predict safety outcomes in the construction industry

Strategic plans play a crucial role in improving occupational health and safety (OHS) in the construction industry. The ability to predict and understand the future changes related to safety outcomes in the industry will assist the authorities and help them to design proactive strategic plans that effectively reduce and prevent accidents and occupational injuries. This study aims to construct the models to predict the safety outcome in the industry. The number of companies in liable earning classifications was used to predict the safety outcome at a macro level in the construction industry. Liable earning is defined as total gross earnings paid to employees. The study utilised data from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) Canterbury rebuild database in New Zealand. The results show that in all the constructed models the number of companies in liable earning classifications is a predictor of the safety outcome including the number of claims (R2 = 0.97) and the number of entitlement claims (R2 = 0.76).