Construction workers die by suicide at a rate that outpaces nearly every other US industry. Approximately 5,000 died by suicide in 2024, a rate of 41.9 per 100,000 workers, according to the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR). That is nearly twice the rate for working men overall, and it dwarfs the industry's own fatal injury count - construction recorded 982 fatal work injuries in 2023 against 5,095 suicides that year.
New federal legislation is attempting to understand why. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada introduced the Constructing the Path to Suicide Prevention Act in August. The bill, cosponsored by five Senate Democrats, would direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct a national study of the risk factors driving suicide among construction workers. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Among the variables the study would examine is access to employee healthcare, mental health benefits, and employee assistance programs (EAPs).
That last element is where the bill connects directly to the employer health plan market. Construction workers are significantly less likely than the average American worker to have employee assistance program (EAP) access. TELUS Health data shows 38 percent of construction workers lack it, compared with 31 percent of workers nationally. Of those offered an EAP, fewer than three in ten know what it covers.
The workforce profile of construction compounds the access problem. The industry employs a high proportion of seasonal, part-time, and subcontracted workers, categories routinely excluded from employer-sponsored health plan offers. CPWR data shows construction workers represent about 7 percent of the US workforce but accounted for nearly 18 percent of suicide deaths with a reported industry code in 2023. The bill's study would examine employment type, work schedule, and organizational factors as potential contributors to that disparity.
Chronic pain and substance use are also part of the picture. About 34 percent of construction workers report chronic pain and approximately 45 percent use prescription medication to manage it, according to TELUS Health data. CPWR has documented elevated opioid use among injured construction workers, which means substance use support is part of the same benefits gap the study would need to address. As mental health claims in workers' compensation have expanded across 31 states, the downstream cost of untreated mental health conditions in high-risk industries is becoming more visible to insurers and employers alike.
The Constructing the Path to Suicide Prevention Act does not mandate any benefit design changes, and its passage is not certain. What it does is establish a federal research framework that, within three years of enactment, could produce policy recommendations aimed directly at the employer benefit structures available to construction workers. Those recommendations would arrive in a segment where mental health claims are already reshaping how employers and insurers think about coverage obligations. Advisers placing health plans for construction employers are operating in the market that study would examine, and the mortality data already answers the adequacy question unambiguously.
