The Impact Of Alcohol Use On Construction Safety Outcomes: An Agent-based Modeling Investigation

Construction is a notoriously hazardous industry and heavy alcohol use is common. This project created an agent-based modeling (ABM) simulation to explore the impact of alcohol on safety outcomes. Simulation modeling is useful in occupational safety research because it generates immediate results and bypasses ethical concerns. In this project, workers and foremen interacted on a virtual jobsite with hazards present, where positive blood alcohol concentration (BAC) decreased hazard awareness, reaction time, and foreman competency. Three scenarios of baseline, increased, and decreased alcohol consumption were analyzed for changes in near misses, injuries, and fatalities. Additional scenarios of improved training and engineering controls were explored also for comparison. Simulation results show that a decrease in alcohol consumption leads to a significant reduction in injuries by up to 12%, and an increase has the opposite effect. Neither of the scenarios significantly impact fatalities due to fatalities' low base rate. Safety training has a comparable impact but improving engineering controls outweighed both.