The severity of the hot and humid conditions to which miners are exposed increases as the depth of the work site increases. This can cause heat stress that can greatly affect the health and safety of workers. To resolve this, a cooling garment has been developed that uses an atmospheric discharge of liquid CO2 to create a cool microclimate with an average temperature of 12.5 (±0.4) °C beneath the garment. To evaluate the garment’s cooling efficiency, 19 male subjects participated in an experimental procedure. The two modes, cooling on and off, were compared. Significant physiological differences were found between the two modes after minute 27 (p

Air/CO2 cooling garment: Description and benefits of use for subjects exposed to a hot and humid climate during physical activities

ABSTRACT The present comprehensive review (i) summarizes the current knowledge on the impacts of occupational heat stress on outdoor workers, (ii) provides a historical background on this issue, (iii) presents a meta-analysis of published data, (iv) explores inter-individual and intra-individual factors, (v) discusses the available heat mitigation strategies, (vi) estimates physical work capacity, labour productivity, and metabolic rate for the year 2030, and (vii) provides an overview of existing policy and legal frameworks on occupational heat exposure. Meta-analytic findings from 38 field studies that involved monitoring 2,409 outdoor workers across 41 jobs in 21 countries suggest that occupational heat stress increases the core (r = 0.44) and skin (r = 0.44) temperatures, as well as the heart rate (r = 0.38) and urine specific gravity (r = 0.13) of outdoor workers (all p < 0.05). Moreover, it diminishes the capacity of outdoor workers for manual labour (r = −0.82; p < 0.001) and is responsible for more than two thirds of the reduction in their metabolic rate. Importantly, our analysis shows that physical work capacity is projected to be highly affected by the ongoing anthropogenic global warming. Nevertheless, the metabolic rate and, therefore, labour productivity are projected to remain at levels higher than the workers’ physical work capacity, indicating that people will continue to work more intensely than they should to meet their financial obligations for food and shelter. In this respect, complementary measures targeting self-pacing, hydration, work-rest regimes, ventilated garments, and mechanization can be adopted to protect outdoor workers.

Occupational heat strain in outdoor workers: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis

Effects of clothing size and air ventilation rate on the cooling performance of three air ventilation jackets (size small, medium and large) were investigated. Two ventilation rates were chosen: lo...

Effects of clothing size and air ventilation rate on cooling performance of air ventilation clothing in a warm condition.

To fully address the multi-faceted challenges of urban heat, it is paramount that humans are placed at the center of the agenda. This is manifested in a recent shift in urban heat studies that aim to achieve a "Human-Centric" approach, i.e. focusing on personalized characteristics of comfort, well-being, performance, and health, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all solutions and guidelines. The proposed article is focused on systematically reviewing personalized urban heat studies and detailing the objectives posed, methodologies utilized, and limitations yet to be addressed. We further summarize current knowledge and challenges in addressing the impact of personal heat exposure on human life by discussing the literature linked with urban heat studies at the human, building, and city scales. Lastly, this systematic review reveals the need for future evaluations focused on accuracy and standardization of human-centric data collection and analytics, and more importantly, addressing critical geographic and socio-economic knowledge gaps identified in the field.

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Personal assessment of urban heat exposure: a systematic review

Construction workers’ health and safety (CWHS) research in India has not gained much attention among researchers. This study aims to review articles related to CWHS research in India using a science mapping approach.,A total number of 64 journal articles published between 2004 and 2019 were extracted from the Scopus database using keywords including “construction safety,” “occupational health,” “ergonomics in construction,” etc. VOSviewer software was used to examine the influential keywords, documents, sources and authors in the field of CWHS.,The study found that most of the current work focuses on safety management, safety climate, safety performance, musculoskeletal disorders and behavior-based safety. The result indicates no theoretical basis for the theories and learning methods for the existing studies.,The findings open up a research gap that researchers explore to enhance workers’ health and safety within the Indian construction environment.,The paper is the first article to provide a better understanding of current research in the field of CWHS in India by analyzing its growth through the science mapping approach.

A systematic review of construction workers’ health and safety research in India

Construction workers are at high risk of heat-related illnesses during summer months in India. The personal cooling garment (PCG) is a microclimate assistive device that provides protection from heat stress. The applicability and efficacy of wearing PCG for the physiological and subjective responses were tested on 29 healthy construction workers at actual field worksites. During the test, the climatic conditions were 103.64 ± 38.3°F dry bulb temperature, 41.2 ± 13.4% relative humidity, and wet bulb globe temperature 91.43 ± 39.92°F. Mean weighted skin temperature was significantly lowered by 38.66 ± 33.98°F when wearing PCG as compared with wearing habitual clothing (HC), 32.36 ± 33.44°F ( p < .05). Mean sweat loss was also significantly lower when wearing PCG: 0.365 ± 0.257 kg as compared with wearing HC: 0.658 ± 0.342 kg ( p < .05). Heart rate, along with back and chest skin temperatures were significantly reduced with wearing PCG. The present study suggests that PCG provides an affordable way of alleviating the discomfort and physiological strain caused by environmental heat exposure.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2165079918785388

Workplace Heat Exposure Management in Indian Construction Workers Using Cooling Garment.

Personal cooling garments (PCGs) have gained increased attention in recent years due to heat stress and strain in the working environment The present study was conducted in hot environments of an iron foundry to evaluate the efficacy of a battery-operated PCG Twenty-four workers were exposed to climatic conditions of 3589 ± 125 °C, 35% relative humidity during 90-min work with PCG and habitual clothing (HC) Mean weighted skin temperature was significantly lower by 484 ± 105 °C compared with HC 038 ± 102 °C (p < 005) A statistically significant difference was also observed for 0492 ± 026 g mean sweat loss in the PCG group compared with 0775 ± 042 g in the HC group (p < 005) Heart rate, and back and chest skin temperatures were comparatively more reduced in the PCG group compared with the HC group PCG provides a practical and economical way of alleviating the physiological effects of heat stress when environmental control is not feasible

Vishal Kapadia

Papers

Workplace Heat Exposure Management in Indian Construction Workers Using Cooling Garment.

Effectiveness of a cooling jacket with reference to physiological responses in iron foundry workers

Palliative Care Without Borders: Providing End-of-Life Support for Separated Families (FR215C)

We Belong Together; Creating a State-Wide Hospice and Palliative Care Consortium (TH123)