Nonprofit launches mobile app to address industry mental health crisis

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The ABC Cares Foundation has created a mobile app designed to address the mental health challenges faced by construction workers.

The charitable arm of Associated Builders and Contractors’ Florida East Coast chapter launched the app on Monday in a partnership with West Palm Beach, Florida-based outpatient behavioral health specialty group Harm Reduction Center, per a release shared with Construction Dive.

The Miami-based ABC Cares Foundation said that the HIPAA-compliant app will provide workers with prompt, confidential access to mental health services. Participating construction companies will display QR codes on their jobsites, which workers can scan to connect with licensed mental health providers for support. 

There is a nominal fee for companies enrolling in the program, said Sonny Maken, COO of ABC Florida East Coast. The app is designed for individual workers with insurance, but ABC Cares has secured low rates for non-insured workers to ensure affordability of care, Maken said.

Upon scanning, workers can schedule in-person appointments within 48 hours. Those appointments could include therapy, case management, psychiatric care and addiction counseling.

The app is designed to address the industry’s mental health crisis. The suicide death rate for construction workers was 2.4 times higher than all industries (46.1 vs. 19.5 per 100,000 full time employees) in 2022, the most recently available set of data. There were five times more suicides in construction than workplace fatalities that year.

“These statistics are unacceptable,” Peter Dyga, CEO of ABC Cares Foundation, said in the release. “This partnership is about action — making mental health care more accessible, which demonstrates our commitment to the safety and well-being of the individuals who build our communities.”

Factors that contribute to suicide risk in construction include pressure to work quickly with few errors, a male-dominated workforce population that creates a “tough-guy” mentality, alcohol and drug use, poor access to healthcare, job instability or uncertainty and high injury rates that lead to chronic pain.

The industry has shone a light on the issue in recent years, however. In October, CEOs from Bechtel, Fluor, Turner, North America’s Building Trades Unions, Kiewit, Clark, DPR, Skanska and Stanley Black & Decker united to form an advisory council to guide an industrywide effort to reduce construction’s high rate of suicide among workers.

That announcement came after Bechtel pledged $7 million to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in March, the largest-ever donation to the nonprofit at the time.