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Occupational heat stress management: Does one size fit all?
Author(s) -
Notley Sean R.,
Flouris Andreas D.,
Kenny Glen P.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.22961
Subject(s) - heat stress , medicine , productivity , occupational safety and health , environmental health , temperate climate , hazard , occupational medicine , occupational stress , occupational exposure , ecology , pathology , economic growth , atmospheric sciences , geology , economics , biology , clinical psychology
Heat stress is a deadly occupational hazard that is projected to increase in severity with global warming. While upper limits for heat stress designed to protect all workers have been recommended by occupational safety institutes for some time, heat stress continues to compromise health and productivity. In our view, this is largely explained by the inability of existing guidelines to consider the inter‐individual (age, sex, disease, others) and intra‐individual (medication use, fitness, hydration, others) factors that cause extensive variability in physiological tolerance to a given heat stress. In conditions that do not exceed the recommended limits, this ‘one size fits all’ approach to heat stress management can lead to reductions in productivity in more heat‐tolerant workers, while compromising safety in less heat‐tolerant workers who may develop heat‐related illness, even in temperate conditions. Herein, we discuss future directions in occupational heat stress management that consider this individual variability.