In 2019, a dedicated group of volunteers from across the construction industry came together with a shared mission: to save lives. Recognizing the industry’s alarming suicide rates, they launched the first-ever Construction Suicide Prevention Week. It was a bold step toward confronting an uncomfortable truth — construction workers face mental health challenges at significantly higher rates than the general population.

Since then, every September, during National Suicide Prevention Month, the construction industry pauses to reflect, educate, and act. Construction Suicide Prevention Week has become a vital movement, raising awareness about the unique stressors construction workers face and providing tools and resources to prevent suicide. It’s a time to foster a culture of care and connection — because every life matters.

2025 Theme: Build Community

This year’s theme, Build Community, highlights an essential truth: while construction workers build physical spaces of connection — roads, homes, bridges, schools, and more — they also have the power to build something equally important: human connection.

Research, including findings from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Dr. Thomas Joiner’s interpersonal theory of suicide, underscores the link between loneliness and suicide risk. In a profession where long hours, job insecurity, physical strain, and isolation are all too common, connection can be life-saving.

Employment is not just about a paycheck — it’s about belonging.

That’s why, during Construction Suicide Prevention Week 2025, the call to action is simple but powerful: Check in. Reach out. Build community.

• Ask your coworker how they’re really doing.
• Text a friend you haven’t heard from in a while.
• Strike up a conversation with someone standing next to you.
• Be present. Be honest. Be there.

We all have the capacity to build community — not with tools or blueprints, but with empathy, time, and genuine care. Think about how you want people to show up for you, and be that person for someone else.

Suicide is preventable. But it requires all of us — employers, workers, families, and communities — to take part in the solution. By supporting mental health and building connections on job sites and beyond, we create safer, healthier workplaces where no one feels invisible or alone.

This September, take the pledge to build more than structures.

 Build a community where no one struggles in silence.