Editor’s note: This story focuses on the topic of mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
The rates of fatal drug overdose and death by suicide have dropped among construction workers, according to recent data released by North America’s Building Trades Unions and CPWR — The Center for Construction Research and Training.
Drug-related overdose deaths declined 28.8% from 2023 to 2024 among U.S. construction workers aged 16-64, according to the report. That represented about 4,600 lives.
The overdose death rate fell from 135.0 to 94.8 per 100,000 workers, CPWR said. For context, the on-the-job fatality rate for construction in 2023 was 9.6 deaths per 100,000 workers.
That meant over 10 times as many workers died from overdose versus injury on the jobsite in 2023. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the 2024 workplace fatality data Feb. 19.
CPWR and NABTU attribute the decrease in overdose deaths to a few key factors, including:
- Education on opioid risk.
- Fewer opioid prescriptions between 2019 and 2023.
- Widespread availability of naloxone on jobsites and in public.
- Decreased stigma around substance use and mental health.
- Improved treatment and recovery support in the industry.
The decline in construction worker deaths by suicide was more modest, dropping 1.7% from 2023 to 2024. The fatality rate from suicide decreased from 43.2 to 41.9 per 100,000 workers, still over four times the rate of on-the-job deaths in the industry.
CPWR highlighted its suicide prevention toolbox talk as a resource, available in both English and Spanish. The organization pointed to interventions such as reducing injuries that cause pain, increasing paid leave, anti-bullying training and promoting a safety culture.
Contractor response
The crisis in construction has hardly been a secret, as contractors have held events, standdowns and talks to raise awareness and help remove the stigma associated with mental health issues.
In 2023, Reston, Virginia-based Bechtel, one of the largest contractors in the U.S., donated $7 million over five years to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That represented the largest donation to the nonprofit in its history.
Last summer, Bechtel launched a branding campaign paired with a suicide prevention toolkit for contractors, dubbed “Hard Hat Courage.” The initiative built by the partnership with AFSP along with a CEO advisory council, seeks to provide companies of all sizes with mental health and suicide prevention resources and education, tailored to construction.
And Bechtel isn’t alone. Skanska has deployed a program highlighting workers on the jobsite who are trained in mental health support, modeling a practice the Sweden-based firm tried in the U.K. In the previous two years, Chicago-based Clayco conducted a survey of jobsite and executive workers to better understand their fears and anxieties around speaking up. Doing so armed the contractor with knowledge for deploying support.
As a result of the survey, workers have been encouraged to seek out psychological safety training and Clayco has provided on-site mental health support, Dan Lester, vice president of field culture and inclusion for the firm, told Construction Dive last year.
“One thing that all leaders need to do is model vulnerability,” Lester said. “If you’re vulnerable first, if you talk about how things are challenging to you, it gives people the license or the green light to say, ‘Oh, my leader is talking about it. They took a mental health day. It must be okay for me to take a mental health day.’”
