Construction

While great strides have been taken to reduce traumatic injury and chemical exposures among construction workers, there is little awareness of or organized effort to understand and change work organization and environment issues that contribute to striking disparities in health and health behaviors that exist in this worker population. Since the majority of construction contractors are small businesses with limited financial resources, there is a need for low-cost interventions that can be readily incorporated into existing occupational safety and health programs (CPWR, 2013). To address this burden, there is a strong need for evidence-based interventions that can be implemented at multiple levels in the challenging culture and organization of construction. The Mental Health in Construction large research project will adapt and implement an existing, evidence-based, multicomponent mental health and suicide prevention program specific to construction that has been widely disseminated in Australia, “Mates in Construction” (“MATES”; Gullestrup et al., 2011; MATES in Construction, 2018; Martin et al., 2016). Interventions will include training at three organizational levels to change attitudes and culture around mental health stigma and help-seeking, and to improve help offering. In Aim 1 the research team will work with regional stakeholders, including leaders of contractor associations, contractors, and union health benefit plans to adapt MATES for the American construction industry. In Aim 2 the team will recruit regional contractors to implement the adapted intervention, which will include different levels of training and increased social and organizational support for suicide prevention and mental health promotion, including improved referral to existing mental health resources offered by employers and unions. In Aim 3, they will evaluate the implementation of the adapted intervention, and its efficacy in changing awareness of suicide and mental health, and changing attitudes around help-seeking and help-offering. The proposed intervention will be designed for dissemination, in coordination with the Outreach Core, through contractor associations and construction unions. This project builds on existing mental health and suicide prevention efforts successfully implemented with our regional construction partners through existing Healthier Workforce Center activities. The proposed study will address personal, cultural, and organizational factors that make construction a high-risk industry, and has a high potential impact to improving health by informing ongoing national efforts to improve mental health and to decrease suicide among this high-risk worker group. Project outputs and outcomes include a multi-level suicide prevention and mental health promotion intervention that can be implemented in US construction firms, leading to improved referral pathways for workers in need, and improved awareness, help-seeking, and help-offering among construction workers.