Study guide
OSHA construction topics
OSHA 10 focuses on entry-level hazard awareness. OSHA 30 adds supervisor-oriented depth, required topics, and elective coverage for crew leads.
OSHA 10
Construction hazard awareness
Introduction to OSHA
Learn what Outreach training covers, what it does not replace, and why trust language matters from the start.
Falls
Falls remain the most valuable construction study topic because the rules and habits show up everywhere on the jobsite.
Electrocution
Electrical hazards demand distance, inspection habits, and respect for temporary systems that still carry lethal risk.
Struck-by
Struck-by hazards come from moving tools, materials, and equipment, so awareness and exclusion zones matter constantly.
Caught-in / Between
Caught-in/between hazards are about crushing, pinning, and collapse, especially around equipment and excavations.
Personal Protective Equipment
PPE is a last line of defense that still needs good selection, fit, and inspection to work well.
Health Hazards
Construction health hazards often build slowly, which makes them easy to underestimate if the app only focuses on dramatic incidents.
Stairways and Ladders
Ladders feel familiar, which is exactly why safe setup and movement habits have to stay visible in training.
OSHA 30
Required supervisor topics
Introduction to OSHA
Understand how OSHA is structured, the legal authority it holds over construction worksites, and your role as a foreman in maintaining compliance. This topic covers the OSH Act, inspection procedures, worker rights, and how to respond when an OSHA compliance officer arrives on site.
Managing Safety and Health
Effective safety management is not a binder on a shelf — it is a daily operational discipline. This topic covers the elements of a written safety and health program, hazard identification and control hierarchies, incident investigation, and how a foreman drives safety culture through leadership behavior, not just compliance.
Falls
Falls are the number-one killer in construction, accounting for roughly one-third of all construction fatalities every year. As a foreman, you are the last line of defense between an unprotected edge and a fatality. This topic covers OSHA's fall protection standards under 29 CFR 1926 Subpart M, scaffold requirements, ladder safety, leading edge work, and the hierarchy of fall controls from a crew-lead planning perspective.
Electrocution
Electrocution is one of the leading causes of construction fatalities. As a foreman, you are responsible for identifying electrical hazards before work begins, enforcing lockout/tagout, establishing safe approach distances, and ensuring your crew uses proper PPE and GFCI protection on every shift.
Struck-By
Struck-by incidents are the second leading cause of construction fatalities. Supervisors must plan for falling objects, moving vehicles and equipment, flying debris, and swinging loads before work begins. Effective control requires PPE enforcement, traffic control planning, load path management, and daily inspection of tools, equipment, and work zones.
Caught-In/Between
Caught-in/between incidents involve workers being caught, crushed, pinched, or compressed by equipment, materials, or structures. As a foreman, you must identify pinch points, rotating and moving parts, excavation cave-in risks, and structural collapse potential before work begins. Machine guarding, lockout/tagout, trench protection systems, and shoring plans are your primary tools for preventing these fatalities.
Personal Protective Equipment
As a foreman or crew lead, you are responsible for ensuring every worker wears the right PPE for the task. This topic covers the hazard assessment process, the hierarchy of PPE selection, training requirements under 29 CFR 1926.95, and your supervisory duty to inspect, enforce, and document PPE use on the job site.
Health Hazards in Construction
Construction workers face serious long-latency health hazards that may not produce symptoms for years. As a foreman, your role is to identify, assess, and control exposures through engineering controls, work practices, and PPE — in that order. This topic covers the major regulated health hazards in construction: silica dust, lead, asbestos, noise, heat illness, and chemical hazards, including exposure monitoring triggers and medical surveillance obligations.
Stairways and Ladders
Falls from ladders and stairways are among the leading causes of fatalities in construction. As a foreman, your pre-task planning decisions — ladder selection, setup angle, extension above landings, and worker training — determine whether a ladder use is safe or a citation waiting to happen. This topic covers the requirements of 29 CFR 1926.1053 (ladders) and 29 CFR 1926.1052 (stairways), including duty ratings, the 4:1 pitch rule, extension requirements, inspection criteria, and prohibited uses.
OSHA 30 electives
Specialized construction coverage
Foundations for Safety Leadership
Supervisors carry a unique legal and practical responsibility for jobsite safety. This topic explores how front-line leaders shape safety culture by moving beyond compliance checklists toward proactive hazard prevention. You will learn the difference between leading and lagging indicators, how to run effective toolbox talks, why near-miss reporting programs reduce serious injuries, and how behavioral observation techniques give supervisors early warning of at-risk habits. The module also covers supervisor liability under the General Duty Clause, the role of safety committees, corrective-action documentation, and root cause analysis methods that turn every incident into a learning opportunity for the entire crew.
Scaffolding Safety
Scaffold-related incidents account for thousands of construction injuries and dozens of fatalities every year. This topic provides a comprehensive overview of scaffold safety requirements under Subpart L, covering the three major scaffold categories — supported, suspended, and mobile — along with competent person duties, capacity and load ratings, platform construction and planking requirements, access provisions, and the critical fall protection trigger at 10 feet. You will learn how to inspect scaffolds before each shift, identify common deficiencies that lead to citations, and understand the training obligations that apply to scaffold erectors, users, and the competent person who must authorize use.
Excavation Safety
Excavation and trenching operations are among the most hazardous activities in construction. Cave-ins kill an average of 40 workers per year in the United States — a disproportionately high fatality rate given the relatively small number of workers exposed. This topic provides supervisors with the technical knowledge needed to manage excavation work safely, covering soil classification (Type A, B, and C), the protective systems required at 5 feet of depth — sloping, benching, shoring, and shielding — and the competent person's daily inspection duties. You will also learn the requirements for safe access and egress, atmospheric testing in deep or contaminated excavations, utility locate protocols, and water-accumulation hazards that can rapidly destabilize trench walls.
Cranes and Hoists
This elective covers the comprehensive requirements of Subpart CC for crane and derrick operations on construction sites. Topics include operator certification and evaluation, load chart interpretation, rigging hardware inspection, signal person qualifications, power line clearance distances, critical lift planning, mobile crane setup on varied terrain, tower crane considerations, and daily inspection protocols that a supervisor must enforce.
Permit-Required Confined Spaces
This elective covers the construction-specific confined space standard (Subpart AA). Topics include identifying confined spaces, the permit system, atmospheric testing for oxygen, combustible gases, and toxic substances, entry procedures, attendant duties, entry supervisor responsibilities, rescue planning, ventilation strategies, energy isolation requirements, and multi-employer coordination on construction sites.
Materials Handling and Storage
This elective covers the hazards associated with manual and mechanical material handling on construction sites. Topics include proper manual lifting techniques and ergonomic controls, rigging fundamentals for slings and hardware, safe storage and housekeeping practices, powered industrial truck (forklift) operation and training requirements, conveyor safety, and load securement for transport. As a supervisor, you are responsible for ensuring your crew handles materials safely and that storage areas comply with OSHA standards.
Tools — Hand and Power
Learn to identify and control hazards associated with hand tools, power tools, pneumatic tools, powder-actuated tools, and abrasive grinding equipment. This topic covers OSHA guarding requirements, electric tool grounding and double insulation, inspection programs, and proper storage — all from the supervisory perspective of an OSHA 30-hour trained foreman.
Welding and Cutting
Explore the critical safety controls for welding, cutting, and brazing on construction sites. Topics include hot work permits, fire watch duties, gas welding with acetylene and oxygen, arc welding electrical hazards, ventilation requirements for fume control, PPE selection including auto-darkening helmets and leather protective clothing, compressed gas cylinder handling and storage, and fire prevention during hot work operations.
Fire Protection and Prevention
Learn the OSHA requirements for fire protection on construction sites, including fire extinguisher selection and placement, flammable and combustible liquid storage, temporary heating device safety, fire prevention plan elements, emergency action plans, hot work coordination, and housekeeping practices that reduce fire risk. This topic emphasizes the foreman's role in integrating fire protection into daily operations.
Concrete and Masonry
Concrete and masonry operations involve formwork collapse, premature stripping, silica exposure from cutting, impalement on rebar, and wall blow-outs during pours. This elective covers 29 CFR 1926 Subpart Q requirements for formwork design, shoring, post-tensioning, precast erection, and masonry wall bracing — all from the supervisor's perspective of planning, inspecting, and stopping work when conditions change.
Motor Vehicles, Signs, Signals, and Barricades
Construction workers are struck and killed by motor vehicles — both project equipment and passing traffic — at alarming rates. This elective covers 29 CFR 1926 Subpart G requirements for motor vehicle safety, flagging operations, temporary traffic control, barricade placement, and high-visibility apparel. The supervisor's role in planning safe work zones and enforcing traffic control plans is emphasized throughout.
Powered Industrial Vehicles
Powered industrial vehicles — forklifts, skid steers, backhoes, bulldozers, and similar equipment — are involved in dozens of construction fatalities annually through rollovers, struck-by incidents, and falls from equipment. This elective covers 29 CFR 1926.602 for earthmoving equipment, 29 CFR 1926.602(d) for lifting and hauling, and references 29 CFR 1910.178 for forklift operator training requirements. The supervisor's role in operator qualification, daily inspections, and safe operating perimeters is central.
Safety and Health Programs
An effective safety and health program is the management system that holds all other safety topics together. This elective covers 29 CFR 1926.20 (employer safety programs), 29 CFR 1926.21 (safety training and education), hazard identification and assessment, incident investigation, and the supervisor's role in creating a culture where safety is integrated into production — not competing with it. OSHA's Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs provide the framework.
Steel Erection
Steel erection is one of the most hazardous phases of construction, combining working at height, heavy loads, and precision fit-up under time pressure. This elective covers 29 CFR 1926 Subpart R — site layout and construction sequence, hoisting and rigging, structural stability during erection, column anchorage, beam and column connections, fall protection for ironworkers, and the supervisor's role in erection planning, controlling decking operations, and ensuring connector safety.
Ergonomics
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are the most common workplace injury in construction, costing the industry billions annually in lost work days and workers' compensation claims. While OSHA has no specific ergonomics standard for construction, the General Duty Clause (Section 5(a)(1)) applies when employers know of recognized MSD hazards. This elective covers risk factor identification (force, repetition, awkward posture, vibration, contact stress), task analysis, engineering and administrative controls, tool selection, and the supervisor's role in designing work methods that reduce cumulative strain.
Take the full topic bank with you
The app includes 2,200+ questions, staged mock finals, progress tracking, and offline study.
