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“If we can create safer workplaces, if we can prevent these injuries from happening, it might not solve the opioid crisis, obviously, but we can really … make an impact,” she said.
Injured workers who died from overdoses were more likely to be male, Latino, and work in construction and mining jobs, as well as in food preparation and service roles, compared to those who died from other causes, the health department found.
Among all working-age people who died in the state during the time period studied, nearly 13 percent died of opioid overdoses, DPH found. Among those who were injured at work, the share of opioid-related deaths was more than 17 percent.
This figure is likely “the tip of the iceberg,” Sparer-Fine said, noting that DPH only looked at claims for injuries that required five or more days off from work and that many injured employees don’t file workers’ comp claims.
The opioid crisis has ravaged Massachusetts, killing 25,000 residents since 2000. The annual rate of overdose deaths more than tripled over the past decade, soaring to a record high 2,647 in 2022. Last year, deaths dropped by more than 10 percent – the first year-over-year decrease in four years, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Opioid use is especially prevalent in the construction industry, which has some of the highest worker fatality and injury rates in the country. An estimated 10 percent of construction workers use prescription opioids annually, concentrated among those with injuries and musculoskeletal disorders, according to a 2022 study by the Center for Construction Research and Training.
The Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, known as MassCOSH, which tracks worker deaths every year, found that 43 workers died from fatal overdoses and suicides last year, a marked increase from the year before. The report found that construction workers died last year at a rate four times higher than in any other industry, though it’s unclear which if any of those were overdose deaths.
MassCOSH is working to change the culture surrounding substance abuse and recovery, said Elissa C. Cadillic, president of the organization’s board, by shifting blame away from workers and encouraging employers to improve workplace safety and support those who seek treatment instead of stigmatizing them.
Workers who don’t get paid if they don’t show up — and are therefore more likely to seek out painkillers that allow them to work while injured and, if they become addicted, less likely to seek substance-abuse treatment that might cause them to take time off — are especially at risk.
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“The choice is really between, ‘Do I not get paid, [or] do I go to work? And if I work, then I just need to work through the pain,’ " she said. “And that’s where opioids come in.”
The Department of Public Health has developed training materials to increase awareness of opioid abuse and provide resources for employers, including injury prevention initiatives and tools to help workers seek out and remain in recovery. DPH has also funded research to improve a state program providing support services and alternative pain management to injured workers who have been prescribed opioids.
Construction unions in Massachusetts are also tackling opioid addiction among their members.
Construction is a “tough-guy culture,” said Frank Callahan, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Unions, and workers tend not to seek help. Recognizing this attitude amid the growing opioid crisis, the umbrella group formed a Recovery Council in 2020 to link all the unions’ substance-use programs. Recovery meetings are held almost every night at different union halls, open to any member of the building trades and their dependents, and “standdowns” are held regularly at job sites to discuss opioid abuse and recovery. Recovering addicts are trained to provide peer-to-peer support, including to every incoming apprentice; stickers with QR codes linking workers to opioid recovery resources are slapped onto hard hats and inside porta-potties.
Because construction work continually shifts to different sites and contractors, there is a fear that a worker seeking treatment will be labeled as an addict and have difficulty getting hired for another job, said Dan McNulty, who oversees the Recovery Council.
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The key, he said, is treating opioid addiction not as a “defect of character” but as an injury, much like what leads workers to seek out opioids in the first place.
“If someone thinks they’re going to get blacklisted for coming forward for help,” he said, “they’re never going to do it.”
Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her @ktkjohnston.
