Construction work is considered the most hazardous workplace, with high levels of safety hazards, injuries, and deaths. In Ethiopia, the practice of safety hazard identification is ineffective because the majority of safety hazards in the construction sector have not been properly identified since, in most Ethiopian building construction projects, mitigation strategies have not been well practiced. The study aims to provide an insight into assessing the identification of potential safety hazards in construction activities and their impact on the performance of public building projects in the city of Debre Markos. A descriptive survey research design was used to gather the required information from a census of key site stakeholders who work on public building projects. To gather pertinent data for the study, a closed-ended questionnaire survey, a structured interview, and a case study were used. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were used to analyze data using the Statistical Package for Social Science version 22 software, while data for a case study were analyzed using Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment, and Risk Control. Based on the overall findings, safety hazard identification practice in Debre Markos town is 24.3%, which is low. According to this, the study revealed that 56.6% of the respondents said safety hazard inspection checklists and 48.7% of personal protective equipment assessment tools are currently practiced activity-based potential safety hazard identification assessment tools that are used in construction works. The results revealed that trips, slips, and falls due to high-traffic corridors, a lack of training and awareness on health and safety hazards, illiteracy about potential safety hazards, hazardous materials, and a lack of information on safety hazards at the work place were the primary causes of potential safety hazards. Accordingly, the result revealed that 25% of human factors, 20% of workplace environment and poor management, 16% of working at the edge, and 12% of poor lanning and coordination are the main factors for trips, slips, and falls from heights. The result revealed that decreases in productivity and an increase in employee turnover, a delay in work execution due to workers injuries, extra costs due to the payment of compensation to injured victims, and demotivation due to the workers injuries were the main impacts of poor safety and health management on public building projects' performance. The findings showed that elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment are mitigation strategies for minimizing and controlling safety hazards. The study also revealed a fairly strong correlation, r of 0.973, between the impacts of poor management of health and safety in building projects and mitigation strategies for safety hazards, and a minimal correlation, r of 0.919, between identification of safety hazards and mitigation strategies. This has been suggested to minimize or prevent the major causes of accidents and deaths in construction activities practiced with activity-based assessment tools to identify potential safety hazards and develop mitigation strategies immediately recognized by all site stakeholders. Keywords: Safety Hazard Identification, Mitigation Strategies, Public Building Projects, Risk Assessment, Health and Safety Management.