Work capacity

Heat stress impacts on cardiac mortality in Nepali migrant workers in Qatar

Authors: 
Pradhan B, Kjellstrom T, Atar D, Sharma P, Kayastha B, Bhandari G, Pradhan P
Year: 
2019

Background: Qatar is a major destination country for Nepali migrant workers (NMWs; main age range 25–35 years) in the construction trade. These 120,000+ NMWs are exposed to various occupational hazards, including excessive heat, and 3–4 workers die each week. Our study aimed to show whether heat exposure caused deaths. Methods: The worker population and mortality data of NMWs were retrieved from government institutions in Nepal.

Workplace heat stress in the context of rising temperature in India.

Authors: 
Dash SK, Kjellstrom T
Year: 
2011

Heat stress is an important aspect in the lives of people working under exposed conditions for long hours. It is interesting to examine the impact of global warming on the occurrence of heat stress in India. This study uses India Meteorological Department (IMD) daily temperature gridded data to investigate the changes in frequency and episodes of extreme temperature events in seven temperature homogenous regions and the country as a whole by applying the guidelines suggested by the World Meteorological Organization ‘Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices’. It is

Heat, human performance and occupational health -- a review and assessment of global climate change impacts

Authors: 
Kjellstrom T, Briggs D, Freyberg C, Lemke B, Otto M, Hyatt O
Year: 
2016

Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change.

Estimated work ability in warm outdoor environments depends on the chose heat stress assessment metric

Authors: 
Peter Bröde, Dusan Fiala, Bruno Lemke, Tord Kjellstrom
Year: 
2018

With a view to occupational effects of climate change, we performed a simulation study on the influence of different heat stress assessment metrics on estimated workability (WA) of labour in warm outdoor environments. Whole-day shifts with varying workloads were simulated using as input meteorological records for the hottest month from four cities with prevailing hot (Dallas, New Delhi) or warm-humid conditions (Managua, Osaka), respectively.

Heat, Human Performance, and Occupational Health: A Key Issue for the Assessment of Global Climate Change Impacts

Authors: 
Tord Kjellstrom, David Briggs, Chris Freyberg, Bruno Lemke, Matthias Otto, Olivia Hyatt
Year: 
2016

Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change. In

Mapping Occupational Heat Exposure and Effects in South-East Asia: Ongoing Time Trends 1980−2011 and Future Estimates to 2050

Authors: 
Kjellstrom T, Lemke B, Otto M
Year: 
2013

A feature of climate impacts on occupational health and safety are physiological limits to carrying out physical work at high heat exposure. Heat stress reduces a workers work capacity, leading to lower hourly labour productivity and economic output. We used existing weather sta-tion data and climate modeling grid cell data to describe heat conditions (calculated as Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, WBGT) in South-East Asia.