Rethinking injury in construction safety technology: A theory-informed analytical review of hazard detection and injury burden.

INTRODUCTION: The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous work environments despite advances in safety technologies. Construction safety technology (CST) research has increasingly focused on hazard detection, monitoring, and prediction; however, the conceptualization of injury within this literature remains unclear. METHOD: This study examines how injuries are represented in CST research through a theory-informed analytical review of 148 studies. The analysis is structured around three domains: safety risk context, safety management function, and injury outcome and burden. RESULTS: CST research was strongly oriented toward visible hazards and detection-based functions, with general or non-specific safety framing appearing in 93% of studies and prevention/detection functions represented in 90% and 86%, respectively. Injury representation was dominated by physical injury outcomes (95%), while burden dimensions such as severity, frequency, long-term impact, cost, and time loss were minimally represented (∼0-5%). Exploratory regression showed limited but improved explanatory power after adjustment for publication year and study type (R2 = 0.150 to 0.251), suggesting a structural misalignment between risk framing, technological function, and injury representation. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Hazard detection metrics alone are insufficient for evaluating construction safety technologies. Burden-informed indicators should be incorporated as preliminary evaluation dimensions, calibrated to specific trades, tasks, and site conditions, and linked to response, recurrence, recovery, fatigue, and corrective-action data. CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight the need for a shift toward outcome-oriented and human-centered approaches in CST research to better align technological development with multidimensional injury burden.