OSHA's New Heat Illness Prevention Initiative: Water. Rest. Shade.

Dozens of employees die and and thousands more get sick each year while working in hot or humid conditions. The OSHA Heat Illness Prevention program informs businesses and employees about the dangers of heat and offers tools to keep workers safe. Employers are required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to provide work environments free of known risks to employee health and safety. This includes protecting workers from heat-related hazards.

Heat-related illness can affect workers in many industries, at indoor or outdoor worksites. Some job-related risk factors include:

• Outdoor work in warm weather
• Heat sources such as ovens, fires, or hot tar
• Strenuous physical activity
• Heavy or non-breathable work clothes

Developing a Plan to Prevent Heat Illness

Employers ought to develop a formal plan to guard against heat-related illnesses. Important factors to take into account when developing the heat strategy are:

• Who will be in charge of daily supervision?
• How will new employees progressively increase their tolerance to heat?
• Temporary employees might be more sensitive to the heat and need greater oversight. Workers who have been away for a long period of time—typically more than two weeks—may also be more vulnerable.
• How will the employer make sure that first aid is sufficient and that the procedure for calling for medical help when first aid is insufficient is effective?
• What technical measures and work procedures will be used to reduce heat stress?
• How is heat stress going to be assessed?
• When the National Weather Service issues a heat advisory or heat warning, what should you do?
• How will we know if the overall heat stress is risky?
• What kind of training will be given to employees and managers?

Day to Day Supervision

In order to prevent heat illness, management commitment to changing heat stress controls is essential. Heat conditions can change quickly. Throughout the working day, someone on site should be in charge of keeping an eye on the situation and carrying out the employer's heat strategy. Foreman, jobsite supervisor, plant manager, safety director, or anybody else with the necessary training can be this person. Being well trained means being able to:

• Identify and control heat danger
• Detect and treat heat stress early
• Administer first aid for illnesses caused by the heat
• Promptly request emergency medical services

The person in charge of the heat strategy should ideally be present at the job site where the workers are. Monitoring on-site enables precise assessment of heat stress.

Heat Hazard Recognition & Calculating Heat Stress

Workers are at risk for occupational heat stress due to a variety of circumstances. These elements consist of:

• Environmental factors, particularly on consecutive days (such as air temperature, humidity, sunlight, and air speed)
• Heat sources present in the work area, such as hot tar ovens or furnaces
• Level of physical activity, or the amount of work causing the body to produce heat
• Use of coverings or safety equipment that can hinder the body's capacity to expel heat
• Personal risk factors for each worker

The OSHA Technical Manual goes into great detail about workload considerations. The table on “Workload” includes common figures offered for various types of work. When assessing the danger of heat stress among workers, take into account the aforementioned criteria. Determining whether a heat danger exists in the workplace is the first step in preventing heat-related illnesses. The likelihood of heat-related illnesses is influenced by two heat sources: environments that are warm or hot generate environmental heat and physical activity that produces metabolic heat. Employers must evaluate both of these heat sources to estimate the overall heat stress of workers.

The entire amount of heat stress should be compared by employers to the stated occupational heat guidance. Employers might use this stage to assess whether the workplace is too hot. Any National Weather Service heat advisories should be known by employers. They should be aware that temperatures significantly lower than those listed in public heat advisories may still cause heat stress in workers.

Keep in mind that physical work makes people feel hotter. Sports physiologists are aware that, unexpectedly, heat-related sickness can develop at low to moderate temperatures, including below 65°F when workload is very high (Armstrong 2007).

There is more to environmental heat than just temperature. Workers' exposure to heat stress is caused by four variables:

1. Air temperature.
2. Humidity. High relative humidity makes it difficult for the body to cool itself through sweating.
3. Radiant heat from sunlight or artificial heat sources such as furnaces.
4. Air movement. In most situations, wind helps workers cool off.

An environmental heat assessment should account for all of these factors. OSHA recommends the use of wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) monitor to measure workplace environmental heat.

Heavy and very heavy work carry the highest risk of heat-related illness. The following table shows more examples of activities in each workload category.

* Workers who are overweight or obese might produce more metabolic heat than other workers who perform the same tasks. The above table assumes a 70-kg (154-pound) worker.

Protecting New Workers

OSHA discovered that on a worker's first day of employment, over half of heat-related fatalities take place (Arbury 2014). The first week of employment also accounts for more than 70% of heat-related fatalities (Tustin 2018).

If employers take precautions to safeguard new employees, these tragedies can be averted. The phrase "workers who are new to working in warm environments" refers to the following categories of people:

• Employees who start new work tasks for the first time, whether they are permanent or temporary, who perform them in warm or hot conditions while wearing additional clothing (such as chemical protective clothing) and engaging in more physical activity.
• Workers returning from a one-week or longer break to work locations where they may be exposed to heat dangers, such as coming back from any form of extended leave.
• Employees who continue to work during the spring or early summer when the weather first starts to warm up.
• Employees who report to work on days when the temperature is noticeably higher than it was the day before (a heat wave).

The workers in all of the aforementioned situations might not be accustomed to the heat loads that day. Due to physiological and/or behavioral characteristics, these workers are more likely to become ill from heat-associated conditions.

The process of "acclimatization" refers to the body's gradual adaptation to and tolerance of increased heat stress. Workers who have never worked in a warm workplace might not have developed a tolerance to the heat. Their bodies must adjust to operating in the heat over time.

Acclimatization as a Protection Strategy

Employers should take the following measures to safeguard new employees against heat-related illnesses:

• Schedule new employees to perform shorter shifts, separated by breaks, under conditions of heat stress.
• Provide new hires with more frequent relaxation periods.
• Inform new employees on heat stress, signs of heat disease, and the value of water and rest.
• Keep an eye out for any signs of heat illness among new employees.
• Make use of the buddy system, and don't let new hires work alone.
• Allow new employees to take a break from work. If they express symptoms or talk about them, begin first aid. Never let someone who is exhibiting symptoms be alone!

These extra safeguards ought to be in place for one to two weeks. New employees should have adjusted to the heat by then and can resume their regular work schedules without risk.

Workers should undertake employment duties that are equivalent in intensity to their anticipated labor in order to acclimate to the heat. For instance, if a new employee has been hired to lay bricks outside in the heat, he should do so during his first week on the job. A worker might not become used to the demands of their profession by performing little tasks.

Engineering Controls

Making the workplace cooler and reducing manual labor with mechanization are the greatest technical controls to prevent heat-related disease. Many engineering measures can lessen the amount of heat that employees are exposed to:

• Air conditioning (such as that found in the cabs of cranes or other construction equipment and in break rooms)
• Increased ventilation in general
• Cooling fans; fans that mist the air with tiny water droplets
• Local exhaust ventilation is used where there is a lot of heat production or moisture, like in laundry rooms with exhaust hoods.
• Shields that reflect light to divert radiant heat
• Insulating heated surfaces, such as the walls of a furnace
• Stopping steam leaks
• Cooled benches or seats for rest periods
• Mechanical tools (such as collaborative robots, conveyors and forklifts) to reduce manual labor

Deployment of collaborative robots can increase the ROI exponentially in environments where conditions may meet the threshold of heat intolerance. Given that one cannot anticipate the heat tolerance of every worker equally, using a collaborative robot establishes a consistent expectation in output no matter the fluctuations in environmental temperature. Universal Robots arms have a working ambient temperature of up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ready to learn more about how a collaborative robot solution may be right for your hot or humid manufacturing environment? You can learn more about our robots and how they can help your business on our website. We invite you to also book a free demonstration today that is tailored to your application to see our collaborative robots in action.