Framing Future of Work Considerations through Climate and Built Environment Assessment of Volunteer Work Practices in the United States Equine Assisted Services

Kimberly Tumlin, Sa Liu and Jae-Hong Park
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Kimberly Tumlin: Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA
Sa Liu: School of Health Sciences, College of Health and Human Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
Jae-Hong Park: School of Health Sciences, College of Health and Human Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: The foundation of healthy workplace design is an understanding of work practices. Volunteers comprise the majority of the workforce in care centers using horses to address human health issues. Documentation is lacking on protections for worker well-being in equestrian microenvironments which are known to have the potential for dust exposures. Climate acts as a master variable in equestrian facility design and ventilation usage to address dust and temperature concerns. Using climate as an independent variable, our objective was to characterize space usage, safety, environmental control, and organizational practices through a national survey of equine assisted programs. We found that more fully enclosed indoor arena spaces were in cold/very cold and mixed-humid climates ( p = 0.0114). Annually more volunteers ( p = 0.0073) work in these two climate groups averaging 100 volunteers per location. A total of 34% of all facilities, regardless of climate, do not use mechanical ventilation systems (e.g., fans). As volunteer worker time in the arena increased, time in the barn microenvironment tended to decrease ( p = 0.0538). We identified facility designs, ventilation usage, and worker arrangements to refine the scalability of future air contaminant monitoring and to provide frameworks for education, workplace design, and prevention of exposure to dust.

Keywords: volunteer workers; workplace design; ventilation; microenvironment; equestrian (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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