CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will host a special virtual event on Thursday, Nov. 18 with NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, and other national experts from labor and medicine on the mental health of the nation’s critical health workforce.

Studies have been looking into the effect of stress and other psychosocial factors on employees’ well-being for decades. One of the first efforts to recognize the connection between workplace stress and well-being was the Whitehall Studies from 1967 to the mid-1980s. And studies continue to document the link between the two.

On the average construction site, safety is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Rules, OSHA regulations, and standard operating procedures control how crews go about their days. While physical safety is essential, what is often overlooked in heavy industries is the weight of mental health challenges.

Invited to do a workshop for a very large international corporation, I went out to a dinner where I sat next to the “grand poohbah” vice president in charge of all things quality and safety. He leaned over to me and said:

Typically, anxiety disorders are chronic. Often, there is a waxing and waning course. The severity of the anxiety condition(s) depends upon several factors including adequate treatment, absence of precipitating factors, etc.

Although it seems to make perfect, intuitive sense that people would get hurt when they are doing the most dangerous things, that isn’t what actually happens to more than 95 percent of us. So, what does this mean in terms of the old risk assessment matrix?

One sweeping glance across the Seattle skyline is enough to see that something is happening in the area. If a region’s tower crane count is any indication of economic growth, then companies should pay attention to the Pacific Northwest.

"Safety for everyone” is the tagline of a 60-second Honda commercial you might have seen this fall. It tugs at the heart strings. A series of images is accompanied by voice-overs: