Builders Veer to New Hard Hat Designs to Stem Worker Head Trauma

Construction workers soon will be wearing new styles of hard hats secured with chin straps that contractors hope will reduce the number of on-the-job deaths attributed to head trauma.

The traditional hard hat has been around for more than 100 years and is usually secured to the head by an adjustable ring inside the shell. The problem is that the hard hat can fly off the head in a fall. A helmet secured with a chin strap is likely to stay put, protect the worker’s head, and reduce the risk of serious injury or death related to a fall.

“We’ve seen firsthand folks that are wearing helmets who fall off a ladder and get up and walk away,” said Kris Manning, safety director for Clark Construction Group LLC in Bethesda, Md.

An average of 376 construction workers died annually from falls, slips, or trips between 2018 and 2020, according to a Center for Construction Research and Training review of fatality data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Head trauma was the most common fatal injury from falls, with 341 deaths in 2020 involving head injuries, the BLS found.

In the same time period, an average of 24,370 construction workers each year were injured severely enough from falls to miss more than a day of work, the agency estimated.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires head protection for construction workers but leaves the specifics for how hard hats and helmets perform to standards developed jointly by the International Safety Equipment Association and the American National Standards Institute.

Price a Factor

Clark began requiring its own on-site employees to wear chin-strapped helmets in 2017, Manning said.

Some subcontractors and workers have even begun using the helmets without Clark’s mandate. Manning estimated about 25% of the 20,000 or so workers at Clark projects already wear a helmet with a chin strap.

“We know that hard hats are no longer the most effective means to protect the craft workers against traumatic brain injury and serious head trauma,” said Manning. “It almost becomes unsettling to know that something more effective is available, but it’s not being used.”

Workers for subcontractors on all Clark projects starting Aug. 1 or later will be required to hear the helmets, the safety chief said, giving subcontractors bidding on jobs time to factor in the higher costs of the helmets. Old-style hard hats from major manufacturers begin at about $45, while helmets with chin straps generally start at about $110.

Clark isn’t alone in its support for chin-strap helmets.

By late summer, all Dallas-based Balfour Beatty US’s field employees will be wearing the new helmets on job sites, said Keith McCoy, the company’s senior vice president of safety.

Once Balfour Beatty’s staff has made the transition, the next phase will be working with subcontractors to provide their employees the latest personal protection equipment, McCoy sad. That includes pricing the new head gear in subcontractor bid packages and contracts.

Setting a Standard

One challenge for employers and workers is figuring out which helmets truly protect against brain trauma, Manning said.

The head protection standard is ISEA/ANSI Z89.1, most recently updated in 2019. OSHA last revised its head protection rule in 2012, adopting a 2009 consensus standard.

An updated standard addressing chin straps could be published in 2024, said Stacey Simmons, chair of ISEA’s head protection product group that oversees standard updates.

“We are at the beginning stages of what this might entail,” she said.

Contractors requested requirements for helmets based on those used by mountaineers.

Simmons said, though, that many mountaineering-style construction helmets were designed to meet European safety standards, but there weren’t equivalent US standards.

There are plenty of safety performance details to be worked out before a standard is issued, Simmons said—for example, whether the US standard will address chin straps potentially snagging when a worker falls. European helmet standards call for chin straps to break away from the helmet if suddenly entangled in a fall or stretch to allow the worker’s head to slip out of the strap, she said.

Without a clear US standard, Clark’s Manning said the company does its own research to determine if a helmet will do its job. So far, Clark has approved 16 models sold by He, KASK, JSP, Milwaukee Tool, MSA, Petzel, and Studson.

“If someone else has another helmet, please send it our way and we’ll look at it,” Manning said.

More Innovations

Chin straps aren’t the only new option to reduce traumatic brain injuries.

Companies that started by offering improved head protection for bicyclists have expanded into construction.

Sweden-based MIPS AB and WaveCel, headquartered in Portland, Ore., initially got attention about five years ago for bicycle helmets intended to lessen traumatic brain injuries. WaveCel and MIPS technologies aim to protect the brain by reducing the force of the impact from a fall.

Max Strandwitz, chief executive officer of MIPS, said the company thought its system would be useful for construction helmets because many of the head impact forces of a bicyclist falling are the same as when a construction worker falls. In an MIPS helmet, during an impact the outer shell of the helmet can move separately from the inner part of the helmet attached to a chin strap.

WaveCel’s research found the traditional hard hat could be improved by using impact-absorbing material instead of depending on a suspension system to reduce the impact’s force, said company co-founder Dr. Steve Madey.

WaveCel helmets feature a flexible three-dimensional wave-shaped web between the outer shell and the head. WaveCel construction helmets will be offered with and without chin straps.

Clark Construction’s Manning said the company isn’t requiring workers to use helmets with the new bicycle-based technologies, but he sees manufacturers continuing to advance helmet designs.

“It’s always good to evolve,” Manning said.