Monitoring Changes in Gait Adaptation to Identify Construction Workers' Risk Preparedness after Multiple Exposures to a Hazard

Abstract

Many construction accidents result from workers' unsafe behaviors, and evidence demonstrates that individuals who consistently engage in risky behaviors often have a high rate of accidents. These risk-prone workers' biased evaluation of hazards (risk perception) and high tendency to take risks (risk propensity) leave them insufficiently prepared when encountering hazards that may cause accidents. Therefore, measuring risk perception and propensity and using these measurements to identify risk-prone workers can provide opportunities to effectively interrupt unsafe behaviors. Our previous study indicated that subjects tend to change their gait patterns before encountering a hazard, a result that may occur due to the subject's perception about the risks of the hazard. This study examines subjects' gait adaptations when the subject encounters the same hazards repeatedly to determine whether gait adaptations depict changes in the subjects' perceived risk from the hazards over time. The results from an experiment confirmed the hypothesis that the subject's gait adaptation upon encountering a hazard decreases as he/she repeatedly encounters the same hazard. This result is in accordance with the theory of "outcome feedback" and represents an opportunity to use gait adaptation as a quantifiable behavioral response indicator for identifying risk-prone workers.