Suggestions for Improving South Korea’s Fall Accidents Prevention Technology in the Construction Industry: Focused on Analyzing Laws and Programs of the United States

Issue

Response/Correction

Field Editor

1. Requires major revision.

The authors would like to first thank the editor for giving us this opportunity to revise and resubmit this paper. We also sincerely appreciate the anonymous reviewers who provided thorough reviews and valuable comments to help us improve the manuscript. Thank you once again.

Reviewer #1              

Overall, this reviewer believes that this is a very informative article. However, the following should be addressed by the authors:

1. Line 31: it should read from the upper level, not from the lower floors.

In accordance with the author’s intended meaning, the following sentence was revised in Lines 32-33.

“Even if workers fall from a low place such as 1m high during work, it often leads to serious disasters including death [2].”

2. line 32: it should read the most serious hazard.

The following sentence was revised in Lines 33-34.

“That is, a fall accident is the most serious hazard in the construction industry [3].”

3. Line 69-71: It will be informative to provide more information about Chi et al.'s system.

The following sentence was added in Lines 79-81.

“The paper stated that prevention measure includes handrails, guardrails, surface opening protections, crawling boards, planks, strong roofing materials, fall arrest systems, travel restraint systems, and fall containment systems [10].”

4. Literature review for fall accidents subsection (line 66): I recommend discussing the following articles:

1) Kang, Y., Siddiqui, S., Suk, S. J., Chi, S., & Kim, C. (2017). Trends of fall Accidents in the U.S. Construction Industry. Journal of Construction Engineering Management. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001332.

2) Al-Bayati, A. J., and York, D. (2018) “Fatal Injuries among Hispanic Workers in the U.S. Construction Industry: Findings from FACE Investigation Reports." Journal of Safety Research. DOI: 1016/j.jsr.2018.09.007

The following paragraph was added in Line 86-94.

“Kang et al. investigated fall accidents that occurred in the United States between 1997 and 2012 and examined the frequency and trend of fall accidents. The study analyzed that the percentage of fall accidents from four major accident types such as fall, struck by, caught in or between, and electrocution. was increased substantially [12]. Al-Bayati and York provided details about the trends of fatal injuries among Hispanic workers in the United States, and analyzed that fall fatalities among Hispanic workers are significantly higher on general contractors' sites. The paper indicated a need for different interventions of industry professionals and government agencies to improve the overall site safety [13].”

The following references were added in the list.

[12] Kang, Y.; Siddiqui, S.; Suk, S. J.; Chi, S.; Kim, C. Trends of fall accidents in the U.S. construction industry, Journal of Construction Engineering Management 2017, 143(8), doi:10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001332.

[13] Al-Bayati, A. J.; York, D. D. Fatal injuries among Hispanic workers in the US construction industry: Findings from FACE investigation reports. Journal of safety research 2018, 67, 117-123, doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2018.09.007.

5. Line 138: What the authors mean by crash?

The following sub-title was revised.

“3.1 Fall accident status in the United States”

6. Line 144- 147: this is not a valid argument unless the authors can provide evidence showing that the number of construction sites and workers decreased after 2016.

Figure 1(b) provide evidence showing that the number of construction sites and workers decreased after 2016. The following sentence was revised in Lines 162-163.

“However, it has been on a decreasing trend since 2017 as shown in Figure 1(b), and the rate of deaths (per 10,000 people) was down to 2.8 in 2018.”

7. Table 2 (line 168): I believe this table is very important, I would like to see the new or revised language added to the laws and standards in the table.

The following sentence was revised in Lines 191-200.

“In 1995, OSHA 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart M strengthened the drop-prevention criteria, which considered working to stay a minimum of 6 ft from the edge of steep roofs that were 6 ft or more in height, reducing the risk of falling by 11% in two years [25]. In 1996, OSHA 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart L modified the maximum scaffold load, which is 25-75 1bs/ft about heavy duty up to 20-60 feet high, and height and width was 5 ft. This had reduced the number of serious accidents by 33%. [25]. In 2002, OSHA 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart R required a personal fall arrest system, positioning device system or fall restraint system and wear the equipment necessary to be able to be tied off when working at a height of 15 ft–30 ft, resulting in a 22.2% reduction in deaths and 53.7% reduction in serious accidents [25].”

8. Lines (202-205), Lines (214-217), Lines (250-251): The authors should address the influence of cultural barriers, not just the language barriers. Cultural barriers should be addressed to improve communication, not just the language barrier. The authors are encouraged to review the following:

1) Abudayyeh, O., and Albert, A. (2018). “Managing Active Cultural Differences in U.S. Construction Workplaces: Perspectives from Non-Hispanic Workers." Journal of Safety Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsr.2018.05.004

2) Al-Bayati, A. J. (2019) “Satisfying the Need for Diversity Training for Hispanic Construction Workers and Their Supervisors at U.S. Construction Workplaces: A Case Study." Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 145 (6), DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001663

The following paragraph was added in Line 372-382.

“Furthermore, some studies stated that cultural barriers are identified as one of the causes that lead to higher injuries rates of foreign workers. However, OSHA required employers to provide several remedies to overcome the language barrier, but no requirements exist for addressing challenges associated with cultural differences. Abudayyeh and Albert stated Hispanic workers prefer to avoid uncertainty and suggested that construction supervisors should provide enough details to their Hispanic workers [33]. Al-Bayati suggested a productive conversation between Hispanic workers and supervisors, and stated that supervisors should understand and value the family and close relationships among their Hispanic workers [34]. Therefore, the Korean construction industry also needs training to understand cultural diversity for all employees including foreign workers.”

The following references were added in the list.

[33] Abudayyeh, O.; Albert, A. Managing active cultural differences in U.S. construction workplaces: perspectives from non-Hispanic workers. Journal of Safety Research 2018, 66, 1-8, doi: 10.1016/j.jsr.2018.05.004.

[34] Al-Bayati, A. J. Satisfying the need for diversity training for Hispanic construction workers and their supervisors at U.S. con-struction workplaces: A case study. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 2019, 145 (6), doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001663.

9. Replace safety belts with the safety harness. Safety belts have been prohibited in the US.

The following sentence was revised in Line 312-313.

“The area of activity is restricted through safety equipment such as safety harness and safety hooks, workers are not given access to danger points, and fall accidents are pre-vented with a fall prevention system [29].”

Issue

Response/Correction

Field Editor

1. Requires major revision.

The authors would like to first thank the editor for giving us this opportunity to revise and resubmit this paper. We also sincerely appreciate the anonymous reviewers who provided thorough reviews and valuable comments to help us improve the manuscript. Thank you once again.

Reviewer #2

Even though your paper has regional significance, it is interesting and deals with an important topic scientifically. To make it better and clearer to readers, I suggest some improvements.

1. Title - "Fall" without any noun after it can be misinterpreted, also please avoid the United States in the title, my suggestion is to leave it out, e.g. "Model for improving South Korea's fall accidents prevention technology in the construction industry". Also, you are not finally improving Korea's construction safety, you are suggesting a US model for improvement!

The following title was revised.

“Suggestions for Improving South Korea's Fall Accidents Prevention Technology in the Construction Industry : Focused on Analyzing Laws and Programs of the United States”

2. In the introduction, or better yet in a separate chapter, you should provide the comparability parameters between US and South Korean construction industries. It is crucial to understand are those industries comparable, and if yes to which extent and in which situation. This is my biggest concern in your paper. There are numerous challenges that you have to overbridge to compare those two industries! If you put aside cultural and social differences, construction workers' skills, knowledge, safety education, construction project types and frequencies, organizational breakdown structures, contracting policies, safety regulations, and legal consequences, etc. are crucial to thoroughly and quantitatively explain and then comparison. 

The following paragraph was added in Line 55-61.

“South Korea is also making various efforts to prevent safety accidents in the construction industry under the supervision of KOSHA. And as in the United States, the number of foreign workers is increasing in South Korea, and as the number of foreign workers at construction sites increases, the rate of foreign accidents increases proportionally [8]. Since the United States has a similar environment to Korea in various as-pects, a case study of the United States is needed to prevent safety accidents at construction sites.”

The following reference was added in the list.

[8] Cho, J. H.; A Study on the institutional improvement for the employment stability of foreign workers in the construction in-dustry, Journal of the Society of Disaster Information 2019, 15(4), 514-523, doi:10.15683/kosdi.2019.12.31.514.

3. In conclusions you should provide the main drawbacks of this model in its applicability in South Korea, its potentials, or even breakthroughs in comparison to US reports.

The following sentence was revised in Line 442-443.

“The suggestions in this study are applicable to practice in Korea, and there will be no specific potential problems.”