Assessing Heat Stress and Health among Construction Workers in a Changing Climate: A Review

Payel Acharya, Bethany Boggess and Kai Zhang
Additional contact information
Payel Acharya: Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Bethany Boggess: Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Kai Zhang: Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Construction workers are at an elevated risk of heat stress, due to the strenuous nature of the work, high temperature work condition, and a changing climate. An increasing number of workers are at risk, as the industry’s growth has been fueled by high demand and vast numbers of immigrant workers entering into the U.S., the Middle East and Asia to meet the demand. The risk of heat-related illnesses is increased by the fact that little to no regulations are present and/or enforced to protect these workers. This review recognizes the issues by summarizing epidemiological studies both in the U.S. and internationally. These studies have assessed the severity with which construction workers are affected by heat stress, risk factors and co-morbidities associated with heat-related illnesses in the construction industry, vulnerable populations, and efforts in implementing preventive measures.

Keywords: climate change; construction workers; heat-related illness; heat stress (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/247/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/247/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:2:p:247-:d:129867

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().