As opioid addiction increased exponentially over the last two decades, American construction workers have been among those hit the hardest.
“Workers have to work in pain,” she told Yahoo Finance. “That’s a problem, but that’s the way the industry is right now, and changing the industry is a longer-term effort than what we can do today. But that’s kind of the circumstances.” She added: “You don’t get days to recover, you don’t get a good eight hours of sleep at night because you can’t turn down work when work is available.”
In terms of prescription drug spending, opioids account for 20% among construction workers, which is between 5-10% higher than other industries. Sizemore said leaders in the construction industry should become more proactive about addressing this problem.