Opioids in the Home Building Industry: Making it Your Business

Opioid addiction is our nation’s leading public health crisis, and it affects people across all socioeconomic classes, races, genders and jobs. The home building industry is no exception:

• Overdoses left more than 100,000 Americans dead during the 12-month period from April 2020 to April 2021, a record for a 12-month period.
• Of the more than 93,000 Americans who died from drug-involved overdoses in 2020, nearly 70,000 died from opioid-involved overdoses driven by a proliferation of fentanyl.
• There are close to 200 fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses in the U.S. every day. That’s eight overdoses per hour, including at least two from workers in the home building industry.
• Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid (80 times more potent than Morphine) that since 2013 has driven the steep rise in opioid overdoses.

Sources: DrugAbuse.gov and NPR.

People who work in construction are significantly more likely to become addicted to opioids, like prescription painkillers, than are workers in the general population and are six times more likely to die as a result of overdose. The impact on a business can be significant and includes loss of productivity, healthcare expenses, absenteeism, turnover and much more.

NAHB is pleased to provide a private sector slate of helpful resources and possible solutions to stem the tide of the opioid epidemic’s reach into the home building industry. These tools will complement similar efforts by federal, state and local governments and healthcare organizations.

NAHB and its partners, Job-Site Safety Institute (JSI) and the Advocates for Human Potential, Inc. (AHP), are taking an innovative approach to addressing opioid use and misuse, viewing the problem holistically and creating solutions and educational resources that address intervention points across the spectrum of prevention, treatment, recovery and return-to-work. A proactive approach to this crisis with knowledge and without stigma is critical to the health of the industry and the people who work in it.

Together, we’re Making Opioids our Business.