Modeling Critical Mental Health Risk Factors for Construction Workforces

Construction workers are continually subjected to a wide range of job-related stressors that render them vulnerable to mental health issues. A comprehensive understanding of these threats is necessary before steps can be taken to alleviate or even eliminate them; therefore, this study set out to identify and evaluate the critical risk factors that affect construction workers’ psychological and emotional health. The first step in achieving this was to develop and administer a survey to 343 construction workers in the United States. A factor analysis was conducted to identify the number of factors and a fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) was conducted to assess the severity and criticality of each factor. The factor analysis revealed five principal mental health risk factors were identified: lack of workplace support and empowerment, high job demands, poor working conditions, workplace strains, and demanding tasks. The FSE results revealed that all five were significant. The findings of this study will be useful to policymakers, construction managers, and health professionals by providing insights into the key risk factors that affect the mental health of those in the construction industry. They will aid policymakers in developing policies targeted at addressing the risks, help construction managers implement interventions to improve workers’ well-being.