Mental health in mining takes centre stage: research study gets overwhelming response from miners.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: MINING

As researchers with the Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health (CROSH) prepared to launch their Mining Mental Health study, they needed about 30 workers for a pilot project to test out their survey before getting the study underway.

It was just a precursor to the actual research, but a whopping 80 workers came forward, and many were disappointed when they were told they weren't needed, said Dr. Michel Lariviere, associate director at CROSH, an initiative of Laurentian University in Sudbury.

"This told me just how far we had already gone on the issue of mental health and on the issue of being able to speak about it," said Lariviere, a keynote speaker during Workplace Safety North's annual mining conference on April 19.

"Here we had a bunch of people coming forward and saying, 'I want to be part of the pilot study.'"

Launched in 2015, the three-year, $400,000 Mining Mental Health study is a joint initiative of Vale, the United Steelworkers and CROSH that aims to examine mental health issues in the mining industry.

The work is significant, Lariviere said, because little research has been done on the topic to date.

But the overall cost of mental health disability in Canada is about $50 billion annually. Time lost to short-term disability claims runs about 72 days for mental health-related issues, Lariviere said.

For the average-sized mining company, that roughly equates to 14,000 lost days, or 40 per cent, per year. He thinks that's a low appraisal.

"I think this is an extraordinarily gross underestimation of the true number," said Lariviere, who is also a practising psychologist in Sudbury. "The reality is people don't like talking about these issues, and in my experience don't even like talking about these issues with their family doc."

Now nearing the end of year two of the Mining Mental Health study, Lariviere provided an update on how the work is going so far.

Using feedback gleaned from volunteers in the test study, researchers came up with a survey comprising 558 questions, or 45 pages, which took workers an average of 60 minutes to complete.

Researchers then applied standard measuring scales to assess various conditions related to mental health: post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, fatigue, drug use, burnout, work/life balance, and more.

Lariviere said it was important to researchers that anyone who was an employee with Vale's Ontario operations would have an opportunity to participate.

So, between...