Integrating Wearable Biosensing with Social Norm to Empower Construction Workers for Preventive Job Site Safety

Abstract

Wearable technology holds immense potential to empower construction workers in self-managing safety risks and enables managers to practice individualized risk monitoring, thus addressing the limitations of the current 'one-size-fits-all' approach in construction risk management. More importantly, when risk information from wearables is shared among co-workers, they can protect each other through mutual support and assistance. However, simply receiving information about co-workers does not automatically lead to actions to help others unless there is sufficient motivation. These voluntary safety behaviors are extra-role and not mandated, driven more by informal rules of appropriate behavior, known as social norms. Therefore, social norms can be used to gently guide workers' voluntary behavior to protect co-workers. In this context, integrating risk information sharing with social norms can create a synergistic effect, significantly enhancing the effectiveness of wearable-based risk management. Despite the potential, there are several knowledge gaps to be filled: (1) there is a lack of field-applicable wearable-based risk monitoring techniques for assessing workers' fatigue and heat strain; (2) there is a notable deficiency in managerial strategies that utilize social norms to improve workers’ safety behavior; and (3) there is limited knowledge on the potential of integrating wearable-based risk information sharing with social norms to enhance workers' voluntary safety behavior. To fill these gaps, four interrelated studies were conducted (1) to develop field-applicable risk monitoring techniques that assess fatigue and heat strain risks from biosignals; (2) to develop managerial strategies that leverage social norms to gently guide workers’ safety behavior; (3) to explore the potential of norm-based safety risk information sharing among co-workers in improving workers’ helping behavior. These studies serve as foundational steps towards extending the potential of wearables for safety risk management, moving beyond mere self-monitoring and managerial oversight, and transforming safety into a team effort. This will eventually contribute to creating collaborative and safe work environments for construction workers.