Rethinking injury in construction safety technology: A theory-informed analytical review of hazard detection and injury burden.

INTRODUCTION

The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous work environments despite advances in safety technologies. Construction safety technology (CST) research has increasingly focused on hazard detection, monitoring, and prediction; however, the conceptualization of injury within this literature remains unclear.

METHOD: This study examines how injuries are represented in CST research through a theory-informed analytical review of 148 studies. The analysis is structured around three domains: safety risk context, safety management function, and injury outcome and burden.

RESULTS

CST research was strongly oriented toward visible hazards and detection-based functions, with general or non-specific safety framing appearing in 93% of studies and prevention/detection functions represented in 90% and 86%, respectively. Injury representation was dominated by physical injury outcomes (95%), while burden dimensions such as severity, frequency, long-term impact, cost, and time loss were minimally represented (∼0-5%). Exploratory regression showed limited but improved explanatory power after adjustment for publication year and study type (R2 = 0.150 to 0.251), suggesting a structural misalignment between risk framing, technological function, and injury representation.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Hazard detection metrics alone are insufficient for evaluating construction safety technologies. Burden-informed indicators should be incorporated as preliminary evaluation dimensions, calibrated to specific trades, tasks, and site conditions, and linked to response, recurrence, recovery, fatigue, and corrective-action data.

CONCLUSIONS

The results highlight the need for a shift toward outcome-oriented and human-centered approaches in CST research to better align technological development with multidimensional injury burden.