Workplace heat stress, health and productivity – an increasing challenge for low and middle-income countries during climate change
By T. Kjellstrom, I. Holmér, B. Lemke. Global Health Action, 2009
742 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Background: Global climate change is already increasing the average temperature and direct heat exposure in many places around the world. Objectives: To assess the potential impact on occupational health and work capacity for people exposed at work to increasing heat due to climate change. Design: A brief review of basic thermal physiology mechanisms, occupational heat exposure guidelines and heat exposure changes in selected cities. Results: In countries with very hot seasons, workers are already affected by working environments hotter than that with which human physiological mechanisms can cope. To protect workers from excessive heat, a number of heat exposure indices have been developed. One that is commonly used in occupational health is the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT). We use WBGT to illustrate assessing the proportion of a working hour during which a worker can sustain work and the proportion of that same working hour that (s)he needs to rest to cool the body down and maintain core body temperature below 38°C. Using this proportion a ‘work capacity’ estimate was calculated for selected heat exposure levels and work intensity levels. The work capacity rapidly reduces as the WBGT exceeds 26–30°C and this can be used to estimate the impact of increasing heat exposure as a result of climate change in tropical countries. Conclusions: One result of climate change is a reduced work capacity in heat-exposed jobs and greater difficulty in achieving economic and social development in the countries affected by this somewhat neglected impact of climate change.
Subfields: Animal Science and Zoology, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Physiology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/905fa7b0d1bf584a42806ffaffeb2544cf0aeaf1
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In Animal Science and Zoology
In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
In Physiology
Citations in the corpus
- Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways framework (2010, background): “For example, extreme heat exposure in farm fields reduces agricultural laborers’ work capacity (Kjellstrom et al. 2009d), further undermining agricultural support industries which include local businesses and services and employment brokers for casual labor (Berry et al. 2008).”
- The Light and the Heat: Productivity Co-Benefits of Energy-Saving Technology (2019, background): “, 2012) and decreases the body’s capacity for exertion (Kjellstrom et al., 2009; Lemke and Kjellstrom, 2012; Sudarshan and Tewari, 2013).”
- Moist Heat Stress on a Hotter Earth (2020, methodology): “Relating WBGT to workplace heat stress, numerous studies evaluated potential changes in workers’ labor capacity from a global change perspective (Baker et al. 2002, Kjellstrom & Mercado 2008, Kjellstrom et al. 2009b, Hyatt et al. 2010, Nilsson & Kjellstrom 2010).”
- The Impact of Temperature on Productivity and Labor Supply: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing (2015, background): “If body temperatures cannot be maintained at a given activity level, it becomes necessary to reduce the intensity of work (ISO 1989; Kjellstrom, Holmer, and Lemke 2009).”