Month: February 2024

What is the leading cause of death in construction? It may surprise you. But in this blog post, we’re going to talk about that. And in this blog post, once you know the leading cause of death in construction, we can do something about it. 

It’s so important, you’ll know the main causes, you’ll know the contributing factors, and you’ll specifically know what we can do about it ourselves. And I’ll give you some references for some tools that you can use to help me fix it. All of us fix it tomorrow. So if you’re into that, if you’re into making a difference in this industry, then stay with us on this blog post. 

You know what I really like about construction, I really, and sometimes I lose people with this, but stay with me. Construction is a whole lot more like war than we think. Right? If you think about it, in war, you’re fighting for a cause. We do the same thing in construction. 

In war, we’re protecting the innocent, those wonderful women and men in the services are protecting the innocent, guess what? We get to do the same thing. In construction. In war, you get to work with a band of brothers or sisters, a team and really form a cohesive unit. 

Guess what, we get to do that same thing in construction, the passion, the drive, the difficulty, the experience, the excitement of construction is so awesome. And the only thing we’re fighting against and construction is waste, disrespect, and variation. We don’t have to kill anyone. It is a wonderful industry,

What Is The Leading Cause Of Death In Construction?

this industry also has some contributing factors that lead to the leading cause of death. And so I’m going to tell you right now, what is it? And let me ask you a question. If 1000 people die in 2023, or four, whenever you’re reading this blog post, are five if 1000 people in the US in construction die by electrocution, caught between falls, confined space accidents, electrocution, if 1000 people die, how many people die from mental illness, or specifically, death by suicide?

How many people, just take a guess. If you guessed five times, or gave me the number 5000. That is the number of people that will die by suicide in construction in a year in the US. 

And so this is tragic. We and this is not a dig at all, you go to a construction project, I bet you they’re going to have a toolbox talk on safety, they’re going to have a safety stand down, they’re going to have a lot of training and fall protection week, they’re going to have their safety manual, they’re going to have their site safety rules, they’re going to have their zero tolerance rules.

And yet, only 1000 People will die, which is way too many in construction in 2023, but 5000 people and that’s not extended, that’s not our friends and neighbors. That’s us, that’s people in construction, us, 5000 of us will die by suicide in the year 2023. It is the leading cause of death that I know of.

So one thing I like to say the concepts that we talked about on the elevate construction blog post on are YouTube channels, and specifically this channel are specifically designed to improve the environment for the women and men in this industry so that we don’t have this problem. 

And so I would invite you please like so that we can share this content far and wide. Please subscribe so that you can stay with us. And please join us in doing what we can all together to prevent an environment that would cause our add to the contributing factors of such hard numbers to understand. That’s my invitation to you. Let me just say a couple of things here

What To Understand About Death By Suicide

real quick. I am not advocating any kind of social stance or any kind of political stance, I’m telling you, I say death by suicide, because there is evidence that suggests that when somebody dies by suicide, there are contributing factors that may lean in the direction of that person not being in a balanced and well thought state of mind, meaning that not sure that it’s entirely the person’s fault. Not sure that hormonally and from a biochemical standpoint, that these people that fall victim to this horrible tragedy in all cases can prevent this.

And so when we say the word commit, that is a much different story than death by the contributing factors when compounded, meaning all of the things that a person experiences can put somebody into such a hopeless scenario.

And when they start to feel like it’s hopeless, and that other people would be better off without them, then that’s when death by suicide looks like a viable option. And so death by suicide, understanding that these people can be or are victims is a very important perspective to come from when we talk about this. So let’s talk about this in depth in further, let me give you some specific numbers.

Per the 2021, National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Suicide Rates For Veterans & The Construction Industry

suicide rate for veterans was 31.6 per 100,000, the adjusted suicide rate for the same year in the US was 16.8 per 100,000. Everyone would agree that the numbers for the US as a national average, and veterans specifically are way too high. And that it is a tragedy. It’s hard to comprehend. Let me give you another statistic. The Centers for Disease Control, the CDC, has stated that their construction suicide rate is 53.2 per 100,000.

It’s even higher than that of veterans, regardless of how you feel about the comparison to the construction industry, and veterans whom I respect and love and appreciate. And again, I would say thank you for your service. Regardless of how you feel about the comparison, we would have to admit that both of these numbers are staggering. It is an absolute tragedy. And it’s heartbreaking. So let me tell you specifically

Leading Causes Of Death By Suicide In Construction

some of the leading causes. In some specific studies about the contributing factors that lead to death by suicide, it was listed that some of the specific causes ranged from working overtime shift work working out of state or away from home, meaning mobile, or more transient workforces, or leaders, meaning when you have to work away from home.

When construction workers are disrespected in harsh conditions, which leads to the abuse and sometimes damage of their body, which then leads to opioid addictions, which then leads to marital problems, which then leads to divorce, which then leads to child custody battles, which then leads to financial difficulties, which then leads in addition to the myriad of other things that can happen in our industry, because of failed systems and failed planning and a lack of respect for workers.