In construction, a confluence of trends and issues has resulted in the industry having among the highest of suicide rates. Contributing factors include:

• Occupational culture of the industry
• Transient nature of the workforce with no connection to workplace community
• Substance abuse originating from pain management
• Education
• Demographic make-up of the construction industry
• Physically demanding and dangerous work
• Accessibility to lethal means

Traditional industry risk control efforts focus entirely on physical loss and greatly ignores mental health and wellbeing.

By applying the same mentality into psychological safety and wellbeing, safety professionals can help create an environment which:

• Creates a culture in which workers are comfortable to initiate a dialogue about their personal issues
• Breaks through the stigma surrounding the topic of mental health
• Enables communication on the topic with the labor force and makes it a subject for safety meetings and company communications
• Facilitates leadership in setting the tone on this issue by making suicide prevention a health and safety priority
• Supports employers in ensuring that suicide prevention resources are accessible and that personnel are trained in suicide intervention skills

Risk control must look beyond mental health to other factors that can also contribute to suicide including job strain, sleep disruption, bullying or harassment and other workplace and environmental stressors.

Text from https://www.willistowerswatson.com/underthehardhat