Drug testing and its impact on the incident rate in the construction industry

Substance abuse is a major societal problem. It is blamed for the loss of tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Despite the fight against substance abuse, the problem is increasing. Every industry is suffering losses because of the substance abuse problem. Substance abusers are proven to have more likelihood than nonusers to be involved in accidents, have reduced physical and mental productivity, and cost their employers higher expenses in medical and other care. Drug testing has been growing as a tool in curbing substance abuse in the workplace. It has generated much debate and controversy, technically as well as legally. The technical debate about drug testing involves the question of whether or not drug testing is effective in reducing the incident rates in the industry. The objective of this study was to find out whether the incident rates in the construction industry go down after a drug testing policy is implemented and, if so, by how much. The study accomplished the goal by obtaining data from a sample group in the construction industry. The data were acquired through a questionnaire mailed to a large number of construction companies. The data acquired included, among other things, the incident rates before and after the implementation of the drug testing policy, for companies who had such a policy. The main criterion was the difference between the incident rates in the years before and after the implementation of the policy. By comparing the averages before and after, a conclusion was reached on the change in incident rates. It was found that incident rates, before and after the drug testing implementation (11.21 and 9.07 incidents per 200,000 man-hours, respectively), were not significantly different, despite the 19% decrease. For companies that did not experience any recent significant size increase, the drop in incident rates was about 28%. Also, companies who started the testing policy with high incident rates (above the national average) cut their incident rates from 25.07 to 14.18, a more than 43% reduction: These reductions of 28% and 43% were statistically significant. Size of the company (as measured by number of employees) was not a proven factor in the magnitude of the reduction.