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According to the research, almost 25 percent of all opioid-related fatalities across four years happened to workers in the construction industry.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently released a report showing the impact that opioids have had on the construction industry.

According to the research, almost 25 percent of all opioid-related fatalities across four years happened to workers in the construction industry.

The Findings

The study looked at the state's death certificate data between 2011 and 2015 to see the number of opioid-related deaths in a variety of sectors, The Architects Newspaper reported. Some notable findings include:

• Just over 24 percent of deaths occurred to construction and extraction workers at a rate of 150.6 deaths per 100,000 workers in the state, and 1,096 fatal opioid overdoses out of 4,302 total industry deaths.
• The agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting fields held the second-highest death rates.
• Transportation, material-moving, maintenance and repair workers, along with those in the service industry also saw high death rates.
• There is a spike in opioid deaths in industries where work-related injuries or deaths are more likely. In these industries, workers are also more inclined to use prescription drugs to manage pain.
• The death rate is higher in industries that have less paid sick leave and less job security.
• Men have a higher opioid-related death rate than women.

Looking Forward

The state's Department of Public Health said that it will have to conduct more research to find out if any of these findings are directly contributing to its opioid crisis, The Architects Newspaper reported. The report did say that Massachusetts plans to address the issue by putting both education and policy intervention programs related to overdose prevention into place, as well as improving workers' compensation programs.

In May, the Department of Public Health reported that opioid-related overdose deaths had declined by around five percent in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period of time in 2017, The Architects Newspaper reported.

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