Wellness & Well-being Highlights September 11

Wellness & Well-being Highlights

for the

Week of September 11, 2023

This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog consists of topics on how death rates for people under 40 have increased to how women will play a critical part in the infrastructure bill’s success to how AI (artificial intelligence) might impact the future of education, work, and society. Today, I wish to shed some light on the fact that this month is National Suicide Prevention (SP) Month.

PLEASE let us keep in mind the following significant designations:

Sept 4-8: SP Week for the US construction industry;
Sept 10: Worldwide SP Day; and
Sept 11-14 National SP Week.

As many of you may know, this topic is near and dear to my family. In March 2017, we lost my oldest son, John Jr, to suicide. (It is suspected that repetitive head impacts—including no less than four concussions—from high school football and soccer played a part in his demise.) Upon John’s death, the Concussion Legacy Foundation research team at Boston University identified that my son suffered from Stage 1 CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). As noted in the CTE article linked below, Dr. Ann McKee has been a pioneer on this topic…taking on the likes of the NFL, NHL, etc. has been no easy task! (Disclaimer: John Jr’s findings were included in her recent research on CTE & youth athletes.)

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention) has identified the construction sector as #2 when it comes to deaths by suicide. It also found in a study covering 2003-10, that more than 2200 construction workers died from TBIs (traumatic brain injuries)…representing 25% of ALL construction fatalities. While Dr McKee and her team work on moving the correlational link of CTE and suicide to a causal link, there is work we can do as an industry to prevent suicide. Please see the first 4 of 5 links at the end of this week’s blog for more info on what YOU can do NOW to help.

THANK YOU!

Sources: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/woman-discovered-cte-disease-athlete-brain

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.html

https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2016/03/21/constructiontbi/#:~:text=From%202003%20to%202010%2C%202%2C210,fatalities%20during%20the%20same%20period

https://www.cpwr.com/news-and-events/informational-webinar-series/

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