Conference Agenda

Purpose: This research aimed to investigate how the UK construction workforce is combating the day-to-day issues affecting their mental health. Collating this data will seek to provide a comprehensive data set to identify and guide a future strategy to enrich the current prevention of death by suicide in the sector.

Methodology: The overarching epistemology adopts both interpretivist and pragmatist philosophical stances, embedded in inductive reasoning, to critically analyze the extant literature and to elicit insights from within the workforce through questionnaires.

Findings: Research findings indicate that, although suicide within the UK construction sector has received increasing scrutiny and attention, there remains a significant lack of psychological evaluation of the workforce. The research explored whether psychological safety is absent within the sector, particularly on major construction projects. The original hypothesis proposed that the sector may have collectively suppressed opportunities for workers, regardless of their position, to contribute to meaningful improvements in working conditions freely. If such opportunities are absent, a domino effect may occur, leading to deteriorating mental health conditions. Furthermore, the constant turnover of project teams limits the potential to build strong interpersonal relationships, which are fundamental to a healthy working environment.

Originality: This novel research was conducted at a time when the psychological conditions ingrained in the sector’s working culture were poorly understood. It aims to provide a roadmap for enhancing the mental wellbeing of the workforce, offering a unique opportunity to expand understanding of the psychological landscape within the UK construction sector.

INTRODUCTION. National data in the US and abroad show that welders have a high suicide rate. In the USA, the rate of 81.9/100,000 is more than double that of working-age males, 32.0. Welders are exposed to a variety of work stressors, including burns, explosions, and dangerous gases and particles. The CDC has called for research on the etiology of suicide among construction and related working-class occupations, but no detailed study exists on welders. The present study fills this gap.

METHODS Data refer to 23,962 male suicides, including 224 welders, and are taken from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). An array of fifteen core predictor variables is drawn from previous work. They include psychiatric morbidity, social strains, and demographics. Given that the analysis seeks to distinguish suicides of welders from others, we employ a binary dependent variable where 1=a welder suicide and 0=all other suicides.

RESULTS. After adjusting for the other 15 independent variables, a multiple logistic regression analysis found that welder suicides were 60% more likely than others to have a substance misuse problem (OR=1.6, CI: 1.20, 2.13). Further analysis restricted to the 224 welders showed that a leading pathway to substance misuse was intimate partner problems (OR=2.10, CI: 1.06, 4.18).

CONCLUSIONS. The results inform prevention efforts; substance misuse can serve as a key warning sign for welder suicide. In turn, a pathway to welder substance misuse is intimate partner problems (e.g., divorce, violence), an indirect warning sign. This is the first study on the drivers of suicide among welders.

Overseas studies and emerging data from within Aotearoa New Zealand indicate that those working in forest environments experience a significantly elevated risk of suicide. Yet the limited research conducted within global forest industries has primarily focused on psychosocial conditions and their health impacts, under-recognizing how structural and cultural forces interact to shape workers’ responses to stress and distress.

This presentation offers an explanatory account of how stress and wellbeing are constructed by logging machine operators, drawing on constructivist grounded theory to centre the lived experiences of 27 participants. The analysis demonstrates that wellbeing arises from the dynamic interplay between an operator’s habitus -- the embodied dispositions, values, and cultural logics shaped through the logging lifeworld -- and the structural determinants of the psychosocial conditions they face. This challenges the prevailing assumption that mental health outcomes in high-risk industries can be understood primarily as responses to environmental stressors, showing instead that they are culturally mediated and shaped by how operators navigate production pressures, hierarchy, identity, and control.

This reframing responds directly to the conference theme of rethinking by demonstrating why effective suicide-prevention and wellbeing initiatives must address both structural determinants and the cultural logics that shape coping. It highlights how the same psychosocial environment can produce markedly different wellbeing outcomes depending on the operator’s habitus and their position within the crew and contracting hierarchy.

This perspective provides a foundation for co-designing interventions that are both culturally grounded and structurally informed. A brief case example—drawn from a separate study that developed a video-based operator training system—illustrates how centring operator habitus and lived experience can inform more effective, context-aligned intervention design. Together, these insights offer a reframed understanding of suicide risk in forestry and point toward innovative, lived-experience-led approaches to prevention in high-risk work settings.

In Canada’s oil fields, nearly 27,000 Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) workers live in remote camps, chasing above-average wages, adventure, and extended time off. Yet behind the financial rewards lies a hidden toll: elevated rates of stress, anxiety, depression, relationship breakdown, and suicide. An industry veteran grimly stated, “You ain’t Big Oil ’til you’ve got a divorce or two under your belt.”

Francisco Valenzuela lived that reality. What began as excitement in the high-paying, high-pressure FIFO world spiraled during COVID-19 into isolation, marital collapse, financial ruin, and a near-fatal suicide attempt. That turning point transformed pain into purpose. In Canada, 75% of suicides are men, and the mining and oil and gas extraction industry is predominantly male-dominated and at higher risk (72 suicides/100,000 people). By having the conversations no one else would and challenging the “suck it up” culture, he advocated for regular on-site counseling. The results were undeniable: 368 workers sought help, 155 for the first time, yielding a 30% drop in mental-health absences and 45% fewer lost hours compared to previous years, and an estimated $7.6 million in savings between 2022 and 2024 at a remote site of ~2000 workers.

Today, through FIFO4Real, Francisco shares his raw story to destigmatize help-seeking, highlight proven workplace interventions, and advocate for legislative change -- calling for mandated on-site mental health professionals at remote camps, just as nurses are required. He urges companies and families to expand resources and become active partners in resilience.

This is more than a survivor’s tale; it is a call to action for an industry that powers a nation to finally prioritize the mental wellness of the people who power it. FIFO4Real is building a culture where workers and their families don’t just survive the lifestyle -- they thrive.