Mental health and well-being have become the predominating H&S issues

Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA - The ‘World Day for Safety and Health at Work’ on April 28 was intended to focus international attention on promoting and creating a safety and health (S&H) culture at work, and to help reduce the number of occupational-related fatalities, injuries, and diseases. 

South African construction continues to receive unfavourable media coverage due to trench collapses, building, support work, and slab collapses, fatalities, injuries, disease, and damage to public property. Although there is a need for a paradigm shift from compliance to better practice, including a holistic approach to S&H, there is still the elementary need for basic compliance. 

The advent of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 has hopefully engendered a realisation that there are more than just ‘safety’ issues that must be addressed in terms of S&H in workplaces. Historically, the South African construction industry has focused on the ‘safety’ component of S&H as opposed to the ‘health’ component, despite the ‘health’ issues being more pronounced and more serious in nature, depending on the occupational disease (OD). ODs include, among others, occupational asthma, bronchitis, and pneumoconiosis such as asbestosis and silicosis. In terms of COVID-19 and future pandemics, such ODs constitute ‘underlying diseases’, and as with primary health (PH) issues such as addiction, AIDS, respiratory diseases, or disorders such as asthma, cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and smoking and drug or other substance abuse, marginalise the human body’s immune system in terms of fighting COVID-19, and influenza (seasonal). Therefore, the built environment needs to address occupational health (OH) and primary health promotion (PHP) on projects, which should be integral components of industry programmes. 

An exploratory study was undertaken by Working Commission W123 ‘People in Construction’ (PiC) of The Conseil International du Bâtiment (CIB), which is known as the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction, to develop a PiC research roadmap. 

The top five (seven due to joint rankings) ‘PiC’ issues are: workforce well-being (1=); H&S (1=); mental health (3=); workforce engagement (3=); under-skilled workforce (3=); productivity (3=), and employment practices (3=). The top five (six due to joint rankings) research priorities are: mental health (1); workforce engagement (2=); H&S (2=); workforce well-being (4); productivity (5=), and motivation & leadership (5=). The top five (seven due to joint rankings) research gaps are: mental health (1); workforce engagement (2=); workforce well-being (2=); human rights (4); management failures (5=); women in construction (5=), and technology / new technology (5=). Overall, the top five issues based on the mean of the percentage responses to the top five issues, research priorities, and research gaps, are mental health, workforce well-being, workforce engagement, H&S, and productivity. 

It can be concluded that mental health and well-being have become the predominating H&S issues even though well-being and H&S are ranked joint first in terms of the top five issues. This is notable as in recent years W099 ‘Safety and Health in Construction’, a joint venture partner of W123, was amended to ‘Safety, Health and Wellbeing in Construction’. Furthermore, the PH issues constitute an opportunity for industry stakeholders to respond, as many of these are exacerbated by working conditions, or conversely engendered by poor working conditions and ODs.