Wellness & Well-being Highlights
for the
Week of October 13, 2025
This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog provides us look at how drug overdose deaths in Missouri have declined over the past 2 years—to the impact of PTSD (then, often, referred to as ‘shell shock’) on our servicepeople who returned from WWII—to how recent actions by US-DOT is rolling back Construction’s DEI efforts.
This week I would like to take a closer look at 2 recently released studies on youth, sports, and brain damage. The first study (Nature) looked at mostly amateur American football players under 50 yo. It noted that while not all subjects had signs of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) most had signs of brain cell damage. The author went on to say:
What’s more, while some of the athletes had a history of a traumatic brain injury, or T.B.I., some did not. Instead, the scientists think the changes in their brains were largely caused by multiple small hits to the head.[1]
In essence, when players run into each other upwards of 100 times per game, the results can be debilitating!
The second study (Neurology), via MRI brain scans, observed >300 amateur soccer players in their twenties. These researchers focused on where gray matter intersects with white matter (an area vulnerable to head impacts). To this end, “the more frequently a player headed the ball, the more damage they had, and the worse they performed on cognitive tests.”[1]
In both studies, the greatest damage occurred in the frontal cortex, a region important for planning, working memory and decision making.[1] These 2 studies lay the groundwork for developing tests that one day may identify possible early warning signs of CTE. Two important notes:
- That this research represents a small pool of players; and
- “All of the football players died young, many by suicide or from accidents or illnesses, and their brains were donated for research.”[1]
So, why does this matter? 1) Mainly, because some of us have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. playing collision sports. 2) In last week’s blog, I included an article called Safety Helmets Saves Lives.[2] As I have written in the past, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) accounted for 25% of all construction worker deaths in the U.S. between 2003 and 2010. This made TBIs the third most common cause of death in the construction industry during that period. Our industry needs to shift from hard hats to safety helmets if we truly cherish our workers!
Please check out the rest of this week’s blog: https://moworksinitiative.org/category/worker-wellness-news/
Sources [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/well/mind/brain-damage-sports.html?searchResultPosition=8
[2] https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/09/Research-helmet-lab-construction-safety-helmet-ratings.html
Construction: Addressing Mental Health Stigma
HEAT: Workplace Injuries Increase
Employers / Employees / Food Insecurity
Multiple Minor Hits Damaging Youth’s Brains
Harvard Undergrads / Union / First Contract
RFK Jr / Surgeons General / America’s Health
Gen Z: Redesigning the Workplace
Construction Recruiting: Leader v Laborer
Upcoming webinars, etc.:
CONVERSATIONS: Suicide Postvention (10/17)
TRAINING: Caring Communities – Suicide Postvention (10/17)
Transforming SUD Treatment (10/30)
Supervisor’s Guide to Workplace Suicide Postvention
NOTE: The links provided above are for informational purposes only. None of these serve as a substitute for medical advice one should obtain from his/her own primary care physician and/or mental health professional. Please contact jgaal@moworks.org with related questions or comments.
