What’s Going On
DAVE JOHNSON:
Safety is Uniquely Equipped to Address Mental Health
W
ednesday September 10th was World Suicide Prevention Day. That week, September 7th to 13th, was Construction Suicide Prevention Week 2025. And September is National Suicide Prevention Month. OSHA’s homepage on the 10th featured “Talk with someone who can help” — 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 24/7 call, text, chat. Also on the homepage was a brief video on Preventing Suicide Through Awareness.
Suicide at work, or possibly related to workplace psychosocial issues, is getting more attention than ever. Statistics can’t be ignored. Every year hundreds of employees commit suicide where they work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Worse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 2021, 37,602 suicides occurred among working-age people (16-64 years old) in the U.S. The 2021 suicide rate for working-age people represented a 33% increase from the rate in 2001.
Gone are the days when “mental health was someone else's department — if it was anyone's department at all,” writes Washington-based safety and health expert Jordan Barab in his Confined Space newsletter. Today there is growing awareness that “psychological injuries disable workers as surely as chemical exposures or falls from height,” writes Barab. “But psychological hazards? We’re still learning to name them, let alone control them.”
Mental health and psychological hazards and injuries are now seen as part of a safety and health department’s work — at least in a growing number of organizations. Mental health risks and illnesses are also the purview, or should be, of human resources, occupational health and wellbeing leaders, line managers, team leaders, risk managers, peer support groups given psychological first aid training, and anyone responsible for workload, welfare and work environments.
Photo: eyesfoto / E+ / Getty Images
Proactive preventive actions are summed up by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), a global community of some 50,000 occupational safety and health professionals:
• Check in with colleagues, friends, family and, yes, strangers
• Reach out and ask how someone is doing, a simple “How are you?”
• Really listen to the answer without judgment
• Tell people perceived at risk that you care
• Show up for those around you
• Everyday conversations can have life-saving potential
• Foster compassionate work cultures where employees feel safe to speak up and seek help
The best perspective
Taking these steps falls more on frontline managers, floor leaders and safety and health professionals than office-bound middle managers, HR types or peers — especially if coworkers are not trained in psychological safety to recognize red flags and intervene.
To be sure, almost everyone in an office, on a construction site, in a warehouse — name any workplace — has one or several close friends. And if they saw a friend struggling or knew of a friend’s personal stresses, they would ask, “How are you today? Tell me what’s going on?” They would listen closely and offer support. But beyond a few close relationships that most people have at work, it’s unlikely employees will “reach out” to someone they don’t know, unless there are physical signs such as a panic attack. Good Samaritans are a minority.
Leaders on the frontlines, on the floor or in the field, have a more holistic perspective. This certainly includes roving, observant safety and health managers. These are the people in an organization with the best read of many workers cutting across teams, departments and work site locations. They are more in touch with lone workers out in the field and on the road.
When it comes to mental health issues at work, safety and health leaders are more approachable than most managers.
What safety and health brings to suicide prevention
Checking in is a daily part of the job for safety and health pros with good people skills, soft skills. Face-to-face everyday conversations are the norm: “How’s it going today?” “How’s the family?” “How was the vacation?” Pros, the passionate and committed, are on a first-name basis with more employees than almost anyone in a facility or worksite. “Showing up” for their people is a source of pride.
They also have access to potential evidence of mental health-related problems — documentation — that most managers in an organization do not: incident and near-miss reports, audits, behavior observations, sensing surveys, health data.
When it comes to mental health issues at work, safety and health leaders are more approachable than most managers. They are not bosses. They don’t hire or fire; don’t conduct performance reviews. Good pros are always accessible. They project openness and caring. Unless pros play the old school policing role, they’re non-threatening.
Many pros over the years have played the roles of father confessor, the conscience of the organization, servant leader, facilitator and health and well-being champion. All position them to be a “safe space” for discussions with distressed employees, and in some cases potentially suicidal employees.
Total up these assets and who in an organization is in a better position to spot or privately know of someone struggling? Who is trained and ready for open, non-judgmental, sensitive conversations? Trained to be prepared, present and supportive? Smart safety and health pros will not play therapist; won’t make promises they can’t keep; will protect privacy and know when to involve trained mental health professionals.
Increasing attention to mental health issues in general and specifically suicide is chipping away at stigmas that have silenced sufferers for lifetimes. Safety and health pros are uniquely positioned to disregard the stigmas, perceive risks and intervene with compassion and support to perhaps save a life. It is an opportunity and a responsibility that today cannot be ignored.
Dave Johnson was chief editor of ISHN from 1980 until early 2020. He uses his decades of expertise to write on hot topics and current events in the world of safety. He also writes and edits at Dave Johnson’s Writing Shop LLC and is editor-at-large for ISHN.
October 2025
VOL. 59 NO. 8