HQ BaselineWorkplace safety
Why Construction Workers Deserve the Same Brain Protection as NFL Players
The construction worker on a jobsite faces statistically higher overall head injury risk than a high school football player — with no mandated brain protections whatsoever.
Twenty-four percent of all traumatic brain injuries in the United States are work-related, according to the CDC. Falls from height, struck-by incidents (falling objects, swinging loads), and equipment-related impacts produce thousands of workplace concussions every year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that construction, manufacturing, mining, and oil and gas extraction are among the highest-risk industries for head injuries.
The policy gap
Yet there is no OSHA standard, no federal regulation, and no state law requiring workplace concussion baseline testing for any industry. Compare this to sports: all 50 states have youth concussion laws. The NFL invests millions annually in concussion protocols. The military now mandates universal cognitive baselines. But the construction worker on a jobsite — who faces statistically higher overall head injury risk than a high school football player — has no mandated brain protections whatsoever.
What happens without baselines
The consequences are severe. Without baseline data, a worker who sustains a head injury on the job has no objective pre-injury reference point. Workers’ compensation claims for brain injuries are routinely contested by insurers who argue that cognitive deficits were pre-existing. As reported by ImPACT Applications’ occupational health division, the burden of proof falls on the worker — and without baseline data, that burden is nearly impossible to meet.
The Mid-Atlantic Concussion Alliance has noted that workplace concussions represent one of the most underserved populations in brain injury management. Advanced Industrial Medicine has documented that industrial workers face a “triple threat” of high risk, zero screening, and cultural barriers to reporting.
How we help
At Headquarters, we work with employers and safety directors to implement workplace cognitive baseline programs. These baselines protect workers by enabling early detection of brain injury, and they protect employers by creating documented evidence of proactive safety measures that can reduce liability exposure. See our companion piece on baseline testing as PPE for the brain and the workers’ comp implications.