Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Glob Health Action. 2010 Nov 29;3. doi: 10.3402/gha.v3i0.5635.
Linkages between thermal loads and its physiological consequences have been widely studied in non-tropical developed country settings. In many developing countries like India, despite the widespread recognition of the problem, limited attempts have been made to estimate health impacts related to occupational heat stress and fewer yet to link heat stress with potential productivity losses. This is reflected in the ubiquity of workplaces with limited or no controls to reduce exposures. As a prelude to understanding the feasibility of alternative interventions in different industrial sectors, we present case studies from 10 different industrial units in Tamil Nadu, Chennai, which describe perceptions of occupational heat stress among the workers and supervisors/management.Units were selected from among those who had previously requested an assessment of workplace heat stress exposure at select locations as part of routine industrial hygiene services provided by the investigators. Since the earlier measurements were performed in response to a management request, all units were revisited to generate a simple job and process profile using checklists in order to understand the overall heat exposure situation in the concerned unit. This was followed by a simple questionnaire administration to a small subsample of employees to evaluate the perceptions of workers and supervisors/management. Finally, we retrieved available quantitative data from previous measurements of heat stress at these units to correlate prevalence of exposures with respective perceptions.Results indicate that the existing level of controls may not be sufficient for managing work-related heat stress in any of the sectors studied, with wide variations in perceived risks. There was a noticeable disconnect between worker's perceptions and their ability to secure workplace improvements related to heat stress from the management. Wider availability of engineering and administrative controls in the industries may be facilitated by monitoring worker discomfort, disability, and performance in more intensive ways so that the top management is able to justify the associated cost benefits.Given the potential implications of future climate change related increases in ambient heat stress that are likely to translate into workplace exposures in developing country settings, concerted efforts are needed to integrate exposure assessments with assessments of productivity as well as health impacts. This will likely build the momentum for much needed interventions for large worker populations in the developing world.
在非热带发达国家的环境中，人们广泛研究了热负荷与其生理后果之间的联系。在印度等许多发展中国家，尽管人们普遍认识到这个问题，但在评估与职业热应激相关的健康影响方面，所做的努力有限，将热应激与潜在生产力损失联系起来的尝试则更少。这反映在工作场所普遍存在的有限或没有控制措施来减少暴露的现象上。为了在不同的工业部门理解替代干预措施的可行性，我们介绍了来自印度泰米尔纳德邦钦奈的 10 个不同工业单位的案例研究，这些研究描述了工人和主管/管理层对职业热应激的看法。这些单位是从之前要求在选定地点评估工作场所热应激暴露的单位中选择的，作为调查人员提供的常规工业卫生服务的一部分。由于早期的测量是应管理层的要求进行的，因此所有单位都重新进行了访问，以便使用清单生成简单的工作和流程概况，以了解有关单位的整体热暴露情况。然后，对一小部分员工进行了简单的问卷调查，以评估工人和主管/管理层的看法。最后，我们从这些单位以前的热应激测量中检索到可用的定量数据，以将暴露的发生率与各自的看法相关联。结果表明，在所研究的任何一个部门，现有的控制水平可能不足以管理与工作相关的热应激，而且感知风险差异很大。工人的看法与其从管理层获得与热应激相关的工作场所改进的能力之间存在明显脱节。更广泛地使用工程和行政控制措施可能需要通过更密集地监测工人的不适、残疾和绩效来实现，以便最高管理层能够证明相关的成本效益。考虑到与未来气候变化相关的环境热应激增加可能导致发展中国家环境中的工作场所暴露，因此需要协调努力，将暴露评估与生产力评估以及健康影响评估相结合。这可能会为发展中国家的大量工人群体带来急需的干预措施。
