Ergonomic Risk Assessment of Construction Workers and Projects Based on Fuzzy Bayesian Network and D-S Evidence Theory

Evaluation of Ergonomic Risks for Construction Workers Based on Multicriteria Decision Framework with the Integration of Spherical Fuzzy Set and Alternative Queuing Method

“…These gaps highlight the need for more comprehensive research that includes a wider range of risk factors and develops methods suitable for actual workplace environments. Notably, non-postural factors, such as individual factors and environmental hazards, also contribute to the WMSDs [22,23], while they have not been extensively investigated among construction workers. Various non-postural ergonomic risk factors have been identified and examined within or beyond the context of construction.…”

“…Building on this, Tao, Hu, Xu and Zhang [23] recently established an ergonomic risk assessment framework tailored for construction workers considering risk factors from task, individual, and environment perspectives, which extends the current ergonomics assessment methods focusing on posture-based analysis. However, the importance or priority of the risk factors has not been investigated in a systematic way.…”

“…As discussed in the literature review, it can be derived that both postural and non-postural factors need to be considered. Therefore, this study adopted the framework proposed by Tao, Hu, Xu and Zhang [23] to collect the alternatives of ergonomic risks from individual, work-related, and environment aspects, as listed in Table 2. To be specific, individual risks include previous WMSDs, hypertension, unhealthy personal habits such as excessive alcohol consumption and insufficient sleep, and obesity, all of which are prevalent among construction workers and can compromise a worker's physical ability and resilience.…”

“…To evaluate the ergonomic hazard comprehensively, six risk criteria were considered, including occurrence (C 1 ), severity (C 2 ), impact on workers' productivity (C 3 ), impact on workers' occupational health (C 4 ), impact on labor costs (C 5 ), impact on project schedule (C 6 ). Notably, the C 1 and C 2 are classic and widely-used criteria in OHS-related risk assessments [24,25,53], while the C 3 to C 6 are specifically designed for construction projects, taking into account both individual and project management perspectives, which have been initiated by the authors in the previous study [23].…”

“…Though various factors have been identified and discussed in interdisciplinary studies [19][20][21], there is still a lack of sufficient investigation in the construction sector with high risk exposure [22]. Recently, individual and environmental factors have been integrated with the postural evaluation to establish a comprehensive ergonomic risk assessment for construction workers and projects, while an in-depth analysis of risk factors is still insufficient [23]. In addition, considering the interdisciplinary nature and complexity of OHS risk analysis, risk ranking or prioritization can be a primary and critical step to understand the various risk factors [24][25][26].…”