The purpose of this study is to investigate the main causes of fall accidents and, to
pinpoint the factors that influence the risk of falls in the U.S. construction industry. This
study employed the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) data from the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to examine 9,141 fall accidents,
recorded for the period of last 20 years. The results show that specialty trade contractors
working on low-budget, residential housing and commercial building projects are more
susceptible to fall accidents. In terms of fall height, 85% of the fall accidents occurred on
heights less than 30 ft., and most of them are not equipped with a fall protection tool. The
main contribution of this study is that it has specifically analyzed fall heights and the current
state of usage of fall protection using actual accident data. Since there has been hardly any
research done in the last decade to study falls in the U.S. construction industry, by examining
the IMIS database; this study also presents updated analysis on fall accidents.