Construction Safety, Health and Well-Being in the Covid-19 Era

This edited book presents a significant and timely contribution to our understanding of a broad range of issues pertaining to COVID-19 and its relationship to occupational safety, health and well-being (OSHW) in the global construction industry.

The editors first introduce the industry and its poor OSHW history before highlighting some of the broader impacts of the pandemic on the sector. The book is then divided into two sections. Section One focuses on the management of COVID-19 transmission risk. It captures insights, practices, technologies and lessons learned in relation to what has and is being done to prevent or mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission among the construction workforce. Construction Safety, Health and Well-being in the COVID-19 Era also details case studies, lessons and best practices for managing sites and workforces when infections inevitably do occur. Section Two brings together international chapters discussing the impacts of COVID-19 on the OSHW of the construction workforce both on and off-site, as well as the management of those impacts. Furthermore, this presents implications of the pandemic (at the short-, medium-, and long-term) for other performance measures of construction projects such as cost, schedule, quality and, most importantly, how the pursuit/non-pursuit of such performance measures have impacted/will impact the OSHW of construction workers and professionals in the industry.

This book addresses the gap in literature by offering global perspectives on the OSHW impacts and implications of COVID-19 in the construction industry and will help its wide readership (including construction industry organisations, professionals, researchers, government bodies/policy makers and students) to understand a broad suite of issues pertaining to COVID-19 and its relationship to OSHW in construction.

Dr Patrick Manu is a Reader in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at The University of Manchester. He has expertise in construction management research, especially in occupational safety and health (OSH). He co-led an international initiative in conjunction with Professor Fidelis Emuze, Professor Tarcisio Abreu Saurin, and Professor Bonaventura Hadikusumo, to publish the first edited book on construction health and safety in developing countries, which won the 2019 Taylor & Francis Outstanding Book and Digital Product Award within the best monograph in engineering category.

Dr Clara Cheung is a project management professional (PMP) and Lecturer in Project Management in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester. She has expertise in construction management and organisational behaviour research, especially in occupational health, safety and well-being.

Dr Akilu Yunusa-Kaltungo is a Senior Lecturer in Reliability and Maintenance Engineering in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE), The University of Manchester (UoM). He has research expertise in operational reliability, safety and health management, industrial maintenance and asset management. He has recently served as the principal investigator for industrial safety research projects funded by Lloyds Register Foundation (LRF) as well as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Professor Fidelis Emuze is Professor and Head of the Department of Built Environment at the Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa. Construction research in lean construction, health and safety, supply chain management, and sustainability constitutes the main research interests of Professor Emuze. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF) C rated researcher who has published over 250 research outputs in the last eight years. Professor Emuze is the editor of Value and Waste in Lean Construction (published by Routledge), Valuing People in Construction (published by Routledge), and co-editor of Construction Health and Safety in Developing Countries (published by Routledge). He is the author of Construction Safety Pocketbook for South Africa (published by Sun Media).

Professor Tarcisio Abreu Saurin is an Associate Professor at the Industrial Engineering Department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). He has a PhD in Industrial Engineering (2002), a MS in Construction Management (1997), and a BS in Civil Engineering (1994). He was a visiting professor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University (2018), and at the University of Salford, UK (2012). His main research interests are related to the modelling and management of complex socio-technical systems, resilience engineering, safety management, lean production, and performance measurement.

Professor Bonaventura Hadikusumo is a full professor in construction engineering and management at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand. He joined after his PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2001. His teaching and research areas include construction safety and application/adoption of IT and simulation in construction engineering management.