Suicide Awareness Month: A Blueprint for Preventing Suicides in Construction

We can all benefit from honest conversations about mental health conditions and suicide because just one conversation can change a life. Although it is important to address suicide prevention year-round, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month provides our staff a dedicated time to address this difficult topic. Suicide awareness is particularly a conversation worth having in the construction industry due to the elevated numbers in that industry alone. Construction workers die by suicide at four times the rate of the general population, and the industry consistently ranks number one and number two in deaths by suicide among all occupations.

Samantha Melchor-Frost, one of our Onsite Wellness Program Managers at a construction company in Ohio, was recently interviewed for an article on that topic for World of Concrete 360.

Of the environment that the construction industry presents, she says: “Construction is a very unique industry that requires employees to work long shifts and sometimes to travel to job sites where they may not have easy access to their regular doctors or the company of their family and friends."