Health and Safety Management Compliance in Construction Sites in Nairobi County, Kenya

Construction sites are generally hazardous work environments, to the public, workers on site and even to the environment. This is owed to precarious activities (at heights), the improper use and inconsistent maintenance of tools and equipment, perilous materials/chemicals that could result in injury and ailment to stakeholders. Further, vibrations, dust, effluent and sound emitted from activities on site could disturb the balance of the ecology around or manifest as a nuisance to the immediate communities. However, report has shown an increase in incidents related to health hazards in construction sites. The main objective of the study was assessment of health and safety management compliance in construction sites in Kenya. A case study of construction projects in Nairobi County. The study was guided by specific objectives which were to find out the factors influencing implementation of health and safety management on construction sites in Nairobi County and to establish the kinds and causes of accidents, injuries and ill health on construction sites in Nairobi County. The literature of the study was based on accident cessation theory, and stakeholders' theory and Herzberg's two factors Theory. A descriptive survey research design was applied for this study. The target population was all construction stakeholders clustered into skilled and unskilled labour, site supervisors and site managers. The study targeted at least 150 respondents. Data was obtained through review of relevant project documents, structured questionnaires and physical site observations. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Factor analysis was also employed to analyse the patterns in the data. These results show that all the variables had a significant explanation power on health and safety in the workplace. All the variables explained up to 69%. The findings revealed that that falling objects , dust, broken glasses, collapse of earthworks, toxic and suffocation , fire and explosion and lack of safety wear have a positive relationship with occupation health safety OHS management both in the correlation and regression analysis results.