Heidari Hamidreza, Golbabaei Farideh, Shamsipour Aliakbar, Rahimi Forushani Abbas, Gaeini Abbasali
Research Center for Environmental Pollutants, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
Occupational Health Department, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Int J Occup Environ Med. 2018 Jan;9(1):1-9. doi: 10.15171/ijoem.2018.1204.
Heat stress is common among workers in arid and semi-arid areas. In order to take every preventive measure to protect exposed workers against heat-related disorders, it is crucial to choose an appropriate index that accurately relates environmental parameters to physiological responses.
To investigate the consistency between 2 heat stress and strain indices, , sweat rate and wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), for the assessment of heat stress of people working outdoor in arid and semi-arid regions in Iran.
During spring and summer, 136 randomly selected outdoor workers were enrolled in this study. Using a defined protocol, the sweat rate of these workers was measured 3 times a day. Simultaneously, the environmental parameters including WBGT index were recorded for each working station.
The level of agreement between sweat rate and WBGT was poor (<0.2). Based on sweat rate, no case exceeding the reference value was observed during the study. WBGT overestimated the heat stress in outdoor workers compared to sweat rate.
It seems that the sweat rate standards may need some modifications related to real condition of work in arid and semi-arid regions in Iran. Moreover, it seems that judging workers solely based on monitoring their sweat rate in such regions, can probably result in underestimation of heat stress.
热应激在干旱和半干旱地区的工人中很常见。为采取一切预防措施保护暴露于高温环境的工人免受与热相关的疾病困扰，选择一个能准确将环境参数与生理反应相关联的合适指标至关重要。
研究两种热应激和应变指标——出汗率与湿球黑球温度（WBGT）之间的一致性，以评估伊朗干旱和半干旱地区户外工作人群的热应激情况。
在春季和夏季，随机选取136名户外工作者参与本研究。按照既定方案，每天测量这些工人的出汗率3次。同时，记录每个工作地点的包括WBGT指数在内的环境参数。
出汗率与WBGT之间的一致性水平较差（<0.2）。基于出汗率，研究期间未观察到有病例超过参考值。与出汗率相比，WBGT高估了户外工作者的热应激情况。
似乎出汗率标准可能需要根据伊朗干旱和半干旱地区的实际工作条件进行一些调整。此外，在这些地区仅通过监测工人的出汗率来判断，可能会导致对热应激的低估。
