Workplace mental health at risk as key federal agency faces cuts

By Aneri Pattani KFF Physical condition News In Connecticut construction workers in the Local union who complete addiction healing are connected with a recovery coach who checks in daily attends recovery meetings with them and helps them deal with the return to work for a year In Pennsylvania doctors applying for credentials at Geisinger hospitals are not required to answer intrusive questions about mental wellbeing care they ve received reducing the stigma around clinicians seeking therapy The workplace is the new ground zero for addressing mental healthcare That means companies employees and supervisors alike must confront crises from addiction to suicide The two seemingly unrelated advances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania have one common factor They grew out of the work of a little known federal agency called the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Fitness It s one of the key federal agencies leading workplace mental medical efforts from decreasing alarmingly high rates of suicide among construction workers to addressing burnout and depression among wellness care workers But after gaining considerable traction during the COVID- pandemic that work is now imperiled The Trump administration has fired a majority of NIOSH staffers and is proposing severe reductions to its budget Private industry and nonprofits may be able to fill particular of the gap but they can t match the federal cabinet s tools And chosen companies may not prioritize worker well-being above profits About of employees worldwide say their job is the chief factor affecting their mental wellbeing Research suggests workplace stress causes about deaths and accounts for up to of medical costs in the U S each year Workplace mental physical condition is one of the bulk underappreciated yet critical areas we could intervene on declared Thomas Cunningham a former senior behavioral scientist at NIOSH who took a buyout this year We were just starting to get particular strong promotion from all the players involved he announced This administration has blown that apart NIOSH established in by the same law that created the better-known Occupational Safety and Healthcare Administration is charged with producing research that informs workplace safety regulations It s best known for monitoring black lung syndrome in coal miners and for testing masks like the N s used during the pandemic As part of the mass firing of federal workers this spring NIOSH was slated to lose upward of employees After pushback from legislators primarily over coal miner and first responder safety the administration reinstated It s not clear if any rehired workers focus on mental strength initiatives At least two lawsuits challenging the firings are winding through the courts Meanwhile hundreds of NIOSH employees remain on administrative leave unable to work Emily Hilliard a press secretary for the Department of Wellness and Human Services asserted in a message that the nation s critical general medical functions remain intact and effective including advocacy for coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH Improving the mental soundness of American workers remains a key priority for HHS and that work is ongoing she wrote She did not answer specific questions from KFF Fitness News about whether any reinstated NIOSH employees lead mental wellbeing efforts or who is continuing such work Kyle Zimmer spent years with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local in Connecticut for which he started a members assistance campaign which he says helps workers with the big three mental soundness addiction and suicide prevention Mike Gates KFF Strength News TNS Kyle Zimmer spent years with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local in Connecticut for which he started a members assistance activity which he says helps workers with the big three mental physical condition addiction and suicide prevention Mike Gates KFF Soundness News TNS TJ Lyons a multi-decade construction industry safety professional has worked at big names in the field such as Gilbane Turner and DPR Construction He is confident that such companies will keep workplace mental physical condition front and center despite cuts to federal agencies and staff Raghuvaran Chakkravarthy KFF Vitality News TNS General contractors and project owners are increasingly incorporating mental strength services on-site and as a normal part of their project budgets says TJ Lyons a multi-decade construction industry safety professional TJ Lyons KFF Wellbeing News TNS Show Caption of Kyle Zimmer spent years with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local in Connecticut for which he started a members assistance undertaking which he says helps workers with the big three mental fitness addiction and suicide prevention Mike Gates KFF Robustness News TNS Expand Reducing Suicides and Addiction in Construction and Mining Over construction workers die by suicide annually five times the number who die from work-related injuries Miners suffer high rates too And nearly a fifth of workers in both industries have a substance use disorder double the rate among all U S workers Kyle Zimmer recognized these issues as early as That s when he started a members assistance scheme for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local in Connecticut He hired a licensed clinician on retainer and developed partnerships with local recovery facilities At first workers pushed back declared Zimmer who in recent days retired after years in the union various as director of healthcare and safety Their perception was If I speak up about this issue I m going to be blackballed from the industry he disclosed General contractors and project owners are increasingly incorporating mental soundness services on-site and as a normal part of their project budgets says TJ Lyons a multidecade construction industry safety professional But slowly that changed with NIOSH s help Zimmer disclosed The agency developed an approach to worker safety called Total Worker Soundness which identifies physical and mental physical condition as critical to occupational safety It also shifts the focus from how individuals can keep themselves safe to how policies and environments can be changed to keep them safe Over decades the concept spread from research journals and universities to industry conferences unions and eventually workers Zimmer noted People began accepting that mental wellness was an occupational safety issue he declared That paved the way for NIOSH s Miner Soundness Scheme to develop guidance on addiction and for Zimmer to establish the recovery coaching project in Connecticut We have beat that stigma down by a lot Zimmer declared Related Articles Leubsdorf How Trump is entering the rare club of consequential presidents David Gergen dies at political insider served as adviser to four presidents FBI director Dan Bongino reportedly eyeing resignation Trump tariff on Canadian goods to go into effect Aug Who will and won t benefit from the bigger SALT deduction Other countries have made more progress on mental physical condition at work disclosed Sally Spencer-Thomas co-chair of the International Association for Suicide Prevention s workplace special interest group But with the increase of the Total Worker Wellness approach a surgeon general overview on the topic and increasing research the U S appeared to at last be catching up The latest cuts to NIOSH suggest we re kind of losing our footing she noted Last year Natalie Schwatka an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Community Robustness s Center for Healthcare Work Ecosystem received a five-year NIOSH grant to build a toolkit to help leaders in labor-intensive industries such as construction and mining strengthen worker safety and mental physical condition While a great number of companies connect people to restoration sparse focus on preventing mental illness Schwatka mentioned NIOSH funding allows us to do innovative things that maybe industry wouldn t necessarily start Her organization planned to test the toolkit with eight construction companies in the coming years But with insufficient NIOSH employees left to process annual renewals the funds could stop flowing anytime The consequence of losing such research is not confined to academia Zimmer declared Workers robustness and safety is very much in jeopardy Strength Care Sector Braces for Fallout From NIOSH Cuts For a long time clinicians have had troubling rates of addiction and suicide threat Just after the height of the pandemic a NIOSH survey uncovered nearly half of wellness workers stated feeling burned out and nearly half intended to look for a new job The agency declared a mental wellness problem in that workforce NIOSH received million through the American Rescue Plan Act to create a national campaign to improve the mental wellbeing of soundness workers The results included a step-by-step guide for hospital leaders to improve systems to assistance their employees as well as tips and suggested language for leaders to discuss well-being and for workers to advocate for better policies Cunningham the behavioral scientist who left NIOSH this year helped lead the effort He mentioned the goal was to move beyond asking physical condition workers to be resilient or develop meditation skills We re not saying resilience is bad but we re trying to emphasize that s not the first thing we need to focus on he reported Instead NIOSH suggested eliminating intrusive questions about mental strength that weren t relevant to keeping patients safe from hospital credentialing forms and offering workers more input on how their schedules are made Foundation CEO Corey Feist just now appeared on Capitol Hill with Noah Wyle who plays an urgency medicine medical practitioner on the TV series The Pitt to advocate for Congress to renew funding for this work Diana Pressey KFF Wellbeing News TNS The agency partnered on this work with the Dr Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation named after an emergency medicine practitioner who died by suicide during the pandemic The foundation extended the campaign by helping vitality systems in four states implement pieces of the guide and learn from one another Foundation leaders in recent months appeared on Capitol Hill with Noah Wyle who plays an urgency physician on the TV series The Pitt to advocate for renewed federal funding for this work Corey Feist foundation CEO and co-founder reported renewing that funding to NIOSH is crucial to get this guide out to all hospitals Without those support it s just going to really delay this transformation of physical condition care that requirements to happen he mentioned Who Can Fill the Gap TJ Lyons a multidecade construction industry safety professional who has worked at big-name companies such as Gilbane Turner and DPR Construction is confident that workplace mental wellbeing will remain a priority despite the NIOSH cuts General contractors and project owners have been incorporating budget lines for mental healthcare patronage for years he reported sharing an example of a billion project that included a mental soundness clinician on call for four hours several days a week Workers would make appointments to sit in their pickup trucks during lunch breaks and talk to her he reported Now when these big companies subcontract with smaller firms they often ask if the subcontractors provide mental strength sponsorship for workers Lyons declared But others are skeptical that industry can replace NIOSH efforts Several workplace safety experts reported smaller companies lack the means to commission research studies and larger companies may not share the results publicly as a federal agency would Nor would they have the same credibility Private industry is going to provide what the people paying them want to provide declared a NIOSH employee and member of the American Federation of Regime Employees union currently on administrative leave who was granted anonymity for fear of professional retaliation Without federal attention on workplace mental wellbeing people may leave the workforce she commented Workers may die KFF Strength News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC