Mental Health: Where do we start? A Guide for the Construction Industry

Key Takeaways:

1. Mental health is a highly complicated issue and even medical experts can disagree on diagnosis and treatment. Most professionals in the construction industry are not qualified to diagnose or treat mental health issues.
2. Despite best intentions, construction professionals may make things worse by implementing unsubstantiated and potentially dangerous interventions. Non-professionals cannot provide positive support to individuals consistently.
3. This is a growing scientific field and there are many questions to which we do not have scientifically defendable answers. Therefore, in our rush to act we are vulnerable to making things worse by implementing potentially dangerous unverified interventions.
4. There has been an unfortunate rise in unsubstantiated mental health interventions introduced by unqualified individuals. These interventions are not grounded in robust empirical research and may cause harm to some employees. Any proposed interventions should be carefully examined for their effectiveness, scientific rigor, and validity before implementation.
5. The best role of a construction professional is to de-stigmatize mental health, and serve as a bridge that connects the workers needing support with qualified medical professionals.
6. The way the construction industry operates does have negative impacts on its workers, as the statistics sadly show. Workers of all demographics, site and office-based, are most negatively affected by financial stress and job demand. This is where we need to act.
7. We should reflect on how construction work can negatively affect mental health and seek to improve workplace conditions through collaboration with clients, trade partners, suppliers, and other key players that affect how we do our work.
8. The effectiveness of mental health interventions may be assessed by examining impacts to job satisfaction, financial security, and a sense of belonginess of workers. These are the wellness outcomes the workforce wants.
9. The mental health crisis is an opportunity to dramatically change the way we work to support mental health and overall wellbeing. Although this won’t be easy, it does provide an opportunity to make construction a healthier workplace for future generations.