On Tuesday, October 8th, 2024, MCAA CEO Tim Brink joined the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) for the first White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose Event. The event celebrated nearly 250 commitments from stakeholders across all sectors to help expand access to lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medication and reduce preventable drug overdose deaths.
“With education and awareness, we can empower people to take action and save a life.”
– Timothy J. Brink, MCAA CEO
Tim was introduced by Rahul Gupta, Director of the ONDCP. In his role representing the construction industry, Tim highlighted the importance of this crucial initiative and how important normalizing this issue is. “Reaching other trades facing substance use and overdose requires a collaborative and inclusive approach. We haven’t completely figured this out, and we all need to learn from each other. Through our Alliance with NECA, SMACNA, and TAUC, we have top-down support for this challenge, but it also requires equal support from the bottom up and everywhere in between,” Tim said.
He also highlighted MCAA’s approach to recognizing drug abuse, misuse, and addiction’s relationship with a person’s mental health, and emphasized MCAA’s award-winning mental health awareness and suicide prevention video, and our new joint Construction Mental Health Summit with SMACNA and TAUC at the 2025 Safety and Health Conference.
MCAA’s leadership in construction safety and health started 25 years ago under the guidance of longtime industry expert Pete Chaney. Over the last 25 years, MCAA has been able to attribute a decrease of about a half a million injuries, a savings to contractors of tens of billions of dollars, to these efforts, which included creating and distributing over 700 safety and health resources in multiple languages.
“The crisis often begins with the first major injury, leading to the initial prescription for pain relief. It continues on the jobsite due to the pressures of the current work environment, such as the necessity for speed to market and the fact that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. This all contributes to the need to work through pain and the continued use of opioids,” said Brink.
MCAA supports the White House’s position encouraging employers to:
- Train employees on how and when to use an opioid overdose reversal medications.
- Keep opioid reversal medications in their first aid kits, both on jobsites and in offices.
- Provide opioid overdose reversal medications to trained employees.
Learn More
- White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose
- 2025 Safety and Health Conference
- MCAA’s award-winning mental health awareness and suicide prevention video (available in English and Spanish)
- Additional MCAA mental health resources
If you have questions about this or other safety-related topics, please contact Raffi Elchemmas, MCAA’s Executive Director of Safety, Health, and Risk Management.
