# Pilot Study to Investigate and evaluate Factors impacting Highway Construction Workers' Hazard Recognition Performance

> **NIH ALLCDC R03** · VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INST AND ST UNIV · 2024 · $49,014

## Abstract

Pilot Study to Investigate and Evaluate Factors impacting Highway Construction Workers'
 Hazard Recognition Performance
Project Summary
Highway work zones are dangerous environments where any mistake in recognizing hazards could lead
to a fatal outcome for workers. Highway construction workers have a high risk of exposure to two of the
fatal four hazards, i.e., struck-by and caught-in-between. In 2020, over 102,000 work zone crashes
occurred resulting in over 45,000 injuries and 857 fatalities. Workplace safety perception includes site
hazard identification and risk measurement to prevent occurrences of accidents/incidents. This research
serves as one of the initial studies to take a wholistic approach towards factors that impact highway
workers’ cognitive load and its effect on their hazard recognition performance. Highway workers’ hazard
recognition performance will be measured by a variety of objective and subjective metrics. To this end,
interactive virtual reality highway work zone scenarios will be designed in collaboration with a panel of
industry professionals. Forty Highway workers and construction students will be recruited to participate
in the VR experiment. VR head-mount display equipped with eye-tracking technology will be used to
understand how workers examine their environments during hazard recognition activities, and whether
such search patterns change in response to different intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Eye movements will
be recorded as the workers navigate the simulated virtual construction site and recognize safety hazards.
During the experiment, the workers will be assigned to different tasks, under different environmental
states. The experiments will also be conducted during different times of the day to evaluate the added
impact of fatigue on the hazard recognition. Each participant will start with one normal scenario, and will
gradually experience change in factors. The cognitive workload, which is highly connected to workers’
attention resource allocation, will be measured according to participants’ gaze fixation, visual search
track, and attention map. After each experiment, participants will be asked to fill out a NASA-TLX
questionnaire to collect their perceived cognitive workload. Following the prescriptive data analysis by
comparing participants’ eye movement metrics and subjective feedback, recommendations will be
provided towards the design of intervention systems to improve highway worker safety. The
recommendations will specifically include: (1) need for augmenting workers hazard detection capability;
(2) technology interventions that can be effectively used to help workers in hazard recognition. The
proposed work will broadly contribute to NORA Strategic Goals in Construction sector (NORA agenda
for construction sector- Objective 3: Struck-by)

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10932095
- **Project number:** 5R03OH012606-02
- **Recipient organization:** VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INST AND ST UNIV
- **Principal Investigator:** Nazila Roofigari-Esfahan
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $49,014
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10932095

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10932095, Pilot Study to Investigate and evaluate Factors impacting Highway Construction Workers' Hazard Recognition Performance (5R03OH012606-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10932095. Licensed CC0.

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