Establishment of Safety Management Measures for Major Construction Workers through the Association Rule Mining Analysis of the Data on Construction Accidents in Korea

Despite increasing industrial advancements, fatal and severe accidents, such as “Falls”, “Struck-by”, “Hit by an object”, “Be crushed”, and “Caught-in/between” accidents, persist in developed countries, including Korea. Various methods, including risk assessment, monitoring systems, technology improvements, and safety education, are being implemented to reduce accidents. However, only a few studies have revealed the causes of accidents and their interrelationships; these studies are based on limited data. Korea recently published accident data using national statistical systems, including the construction safety management integrated information (CSI), enabling the analyses of major accident types. Here, we selected various representative accident cases to minimize the duplication of the data published from 2019 to 2023 and applied the Material, Method, Machine, or Man (4M) analysis method, a risk assessment technique, to perform an accident-type-based association rule mining (ARM) analysis of the accident factors. Through the ARM analysis, we quantitatively identified complex correlations for major accidents. Based on the 4M factors derived through this analysis, we improved a 2–4 model for accident causation and proposed safety management measures for each construction entity.