How much workers risk under the summer sun
As part of the national project Worklimate (Inail-Bric 2019) coordinated by the CNR Institute for Bioeconomy, a prototype of an alert forecasting platform was developed for an initial screening of the risks associated with heat stress for workers.
These days a large part of Italy is affected by heat stress conditions which will be particularly intense during the weekend with important repercussions in particularly strategic areas such as employment.
On the WORKLIMATE project website, national maps for forecasting the risk of occupational exposure to heat are available for some profiles of workers who are not acclimatized to the heat.
It should be noted – a Cnr press release notes – that especially for this weekend (and to evaluate the trend for next week), the entire Po Valley, some areas of Sardinia, Sicily and many in the hinterland of central-southern Italy will be particularly Thermally critical for workers who perform both moderate physical activity (e.g., supported hand and arm work, such as hammering nails, filing, but also driving off-road trucks, tractors or construction machines, pushing or pulling light carts or wheelbarrows) that intense (therefore intense work with arms and trunk, carrying heavy material, sawing, planing or chiselling hard wood, or even pushing or pulling heavy-loaded carts and wheelbarrows, to name a few) in conditions above all of exposure to the sun but also in the shade.
These situations can be particularly delicate as they represent the first real heat conditions of the season that occur when the population is not yet acclimatized. In fact, acclimatization to heat is a process that generally requires at least a week of exposure to high temperatures to be effective. In these conditions there could be situations of high sweating and therefore it is advisable to sip water frequently. Drinking only if you are thirsty may be fine on cool days, but on hot days like the ones we are experiencing, workers need to pay close attention to their hydration levels and drink before feeling thirsty. Keep your hydration level high even outside of working hours. In summary, it is necessary to drink before starting work, during the break in the middle of the day, at the end of the working day and to drink 1 glass (about 250 ml) of water every 15-20 minutes, or about 1 liter for every hour of work carried out. .
Other useful indications for workers consist in increasing the number of breaks in shady and preferably ventilated places, remembering that planning short but frequent breaks does not cause productivity losses, but rather, it is in the absence of planned breaks that workers work more slowly. and less efficiently; freshen up by frequently bathing your arms and face with fresh water; it is also strongly recommended to evaluate with the employer the modification of working hours by scheduling the most intense activities in the cooler hours; avoid working alone, so as not to be left alone in the event of the onset of signs and symptoms of heat illness until help arrives.
If individual vulnerability / susceptibility factors are present (e.g. if you suffer from some chronic diseases) then it will be important to be informed on the symptoms to pay attention to and on the intervention procedures in case of heat sickness. It will also be good to report any deterioration in your state of health to the treating doctor or to the competent doctor.
Hot risk prediction for workers not acclimatized to heat exposed to the sun and engaged in intense physical activity based on the prototype forecasting platform of the WORKLIMATE project.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/lavoratori-caldo-previsioni-rischio-worklimate-cnr/ on Mon, 21 Jun 2021 08:33:15 +0000.