Chane, Abraraw (PhD)Woubshet, Solomon2020-12-282023-11-042020-12-282023-11-042020-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/24370Occupational health and safety practices are designed to handle accidents and illnesses that occurred during work and due to the effects of work. To manage the issue International, regional and national organizations have developed standards, directives and guidelines. Construction is one of the highest occupational illnesses causing sector that result in several fatal and nonfatal accidents. The objective of this paper is to assess practices and challenges of the implementation level of occupational health and safety standard intended for construction sector in selected building construction firms found in Addis Ababa. In presentation of results descriptive approach is followed based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collected from twenty one randomly selected grade one construction firms. From the willing firms’ persons having direct involvement in the area including safety and health officers, project managers and other staffs are identified and administered with the questionnaire. The data is collected through questionnaire inquiring the awareness, practices and challenges of occupational health and safety standard implementation. The collected data is analyzed using SPSS statistics tool. The study showed that only nearly half of the participating firms know about the availability of the standard and many of them are not using it. In the other hand the requirements stated in the standard and in other literatures are not well placed and not practiced properly. Integration of occupational health and safety in business activities, of lack of budget, absence of planning and identification of hazards and participation of workers in this activities are major findings of the study. It is also observed that nearly half of the participating firms do not have a function that handles occupational health and safety issues. The major challenge raised from the participating firms is lack of management commitment in implementing the requirements and practices in construction sites. As a recommendation the firms should use the standard and apply the requirements and other practices to save the life of their workers and the resource wasted in relation to accidents. Finally this paper provides a highlight on occupational status of participating firms which will be used as an input for further detail study on the overall status of the firms with this respect.en-USoccupational health and safetyconstructionstandards, accidents,challenges, practicesThesis