Dataset Information

Occupational Heat Stress Profiles in Selected Workplaces in India.

ABSTRACT: Health and productivity impacts from occupational heat stress have significant ramifications for the large workforce of India. This study profiled occupational heat stress impacts on the health and productivity of workers in select organized and unorganized Indian work sectors. During hotter and cooler seasons, Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures (WBGT) were used to quantify the risk of heat stress, according to International workplace guidelines. Questionnaires assessed workers' perceived health and productivity impacts from heat stress. A total of 442 workers from 18 Indian workplaces participated (22% and 78% from the organized and unorganized sector, respectively). Overall 82% and 42% of workers were exposed to higher than recommended WBGT during hotter and cooler periods, respectively. Workers with heavy workloads reported more heat-related health issues (chi square = 23.67, p ? 0.001) and reduced productivity (chi square = 15.82, p ? 0.001), especially the outdoor workers. Heat-rashes, dehydration, heat-syncope and urinogenital symptoms were self-reported health issues. Cited reasons for productivity losses were: extended-work hours due to fatigue/exhaustion, sickness/hospitalization and wages lost. Reducing workplace heat stress will benefit industries and workers via improving worker health and productivity. Adaptation and mitigation measures to tackle heat stress are imperative to protect the present and future workforce as climate change progresses.

SUBMITTER: Venugopal V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4730480 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Occupational Heat Stress Profiles in Selected Workplaces in India.

Venugopal Vidhya V Chinnadurai Jeremiah S JS Lucas Rebekah A I RA Kjellstrom Tord T

International journal of environmental research and public health 20151229 1

Health and productivity impacts from occupational heat stress have significant ramifications for the large workforce of India. This study profiled occupational heat stress impacts on the health and productivity of workers in select organized and unorganized Indian work sectors. During hotter and cooler seasons, Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures (WBGT) were used to quantify the risk of heat stress, according to International workplace guidelines. Questionnaires assessed workers' perceived health and pr ...[more]

PMID: 26729144

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Project description:BackgroundHealth concerns unique to women are growing with the large number of women venturing into different trades that expose them to hot working environments and inadequate sanitation facilities, common in many Indian workplaces.ObjectiveThe study was carried out to investigate the health implications of exposures to hot work environments and inadequate sanitation facilities at their workplaces for women workers.DesignA cross-sectional study was conducted with 312 women workers in three occupational sectors in 2014-2015. Quantitative data on heat exposures and physiological heat strain indicators such as core body temperature (CBT), sweat rate (SwR), and urine specific gravity (USG) were collected. A structured questionnaire captured workers perceptions about health impacts of heat stress and inadequate sanitary facilities at the workplace.ResultsWorkplace heat exposures exceeded the threshold limit value for safe manual work for 71% women (Avg. wet bulb globe temperature=30°C±2.3°C) during the study period. Eighty-seven percent of the 200 women who had inadequate/no toilets at their workplaces reported experiencing genitourinary problems periodically. Above normal CBT, SwR, and USG in about 10% women workers indicated heat strain and moderate dehydration that corroborated well with their perceptions. Observed significant associations between high-heat exposures and SwR (t=-2.3879, p=0.0192), inadequate toilet facilities and self-reported adverse heat-related health symptoms (? (2)=4.03, p=0.0444), and prevalence of genitourinary issues (? (2)=42.92, p=0.0005×10(-7)) reemphasize that heat is a risk and lack of sanitation facilities is a major health concern for women workers.ConclusionsThe preliminary evidence suggests that health of women workers is at risk due to occupational heat exposures and inadequate sanitation facilities at many Indian workplaces. Intervention through strong labor policies with gender sensitivity is the need of the hour to empower women, avert further health risks, and also enhance productivity for the few million women workers who contribute largely to the country's economy.

Project description:Compound warm-dry spells over land, which is expected to occur more frequently and expected to cover a much larger spatial extent in a warming climate, result from the simultaneous or successive occurrence of extreme heatwaves, low precipitation, and synoptic conditions, e.g., low surface wind speeds. While changing patterns of weather and climate extremes cannot be ameliorated, effective mitigation requires an understanding of the multivariate nature of interacting drivers that influence the occurrence frequency and predictability of these extremes. However, risk assessments are often focused on univariate statistics, incorporating either extreme temperature or low precipitation; or at the most bivariate statistics considering concurrence of temperature versus precipitation, without accounting for synoptic conditions influencing their joint dependency. Based on station-based daily meteorological records from 23 urban and peri-urban locations of India, covering the 1970-2018 period, this study identifies four distinct regions that show temporal clustering of the timing of heatwaves. Further, combining joint probability distributions of interacting drivers, this analysis explored compound warm-dry potentials that result from the co-occurrence of warmer temperature, scarcer precipitation, and synoptic wind patterns. The results reveal 50-year severe heat stress solely based on the temperature at each location tends to be more frequent and is expected to become 5 to 17-year compound warm-dry events considering interdependence between attributes. Notably, considering dependence among drivers, a median 6-fold amplification (ranging from 3 to 10-fold) in compound warm-dry spell frequency is apparent relative to the expected annual number of a local (univariate) 50-year severe heatwave episode, indicating warming-induced desiccation is already underway over most of the urbanized areas of the country.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00382-022-06324-y.

Project description:BACKGROUND:The thermophilic anaerobe Clostridium thermocellum is a candidate consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) biocatalyst for cellulosic ethanol production. It is capable of both cellulose solubilization and its fermentation to produce lignocellulosic ethanol. Intolerance to stresses routinely encountered during industrial fermentations may hinder the commercial development of this organism. A previous C. thermocellum ethanol stress study showed that the largest transcriptomic response was in genes and proteins related to nitrogen uptake and metabolism. RESULTS:In this study, C. thermocellum was grown to mid-exponential phase and treated with furfural or heat to a final concentration of 3 g.L-1 or 68°C respectively to investigate general and specific physiological and regulatory stress responses. Samples were taken at 10, 30, 60 and 120 min post-shock, and from untreated control fermentations, for transcriptomic analyses and fermentation product determinations and compared to a published dataset from an ethanol stress study. Urea uptake genes were induced following furfural stress, but not to the same extent as ethanol stress and transcription from these genes was largely unaffected by heat stress. The largest transcriptomic response to furfural stress was genes for sulfate transporter subunits and enzymes in the sulfate assimilatory pathway, although these genes were also affected late in the heat and ethanol stress responses. Lactate production was higher in furfural treated culture, although the lactate dehydrogenase gene was not differentially expressed under this condition. Other redox related genes such as a copy of the rex gene, a bifunctional acetaldehyde-CoA/alcohol dehydrogenase and adjacent genes did show lower expression after furfural stress compared to the control, heat and ethanol fermentation profiles. Heat stress induced expression from chaperone related genes and overlap was observed with the responses to the other stresses. This study suggests the involvement of C. thermocellum genes with functions in oxidative stress protection, electron transfer, detoxification, sulfur and nitrogen acquisition, and DNA repair mechanisms in its stress responses and the use of different regulatory networks to coordinate and control adaptation. CONCLUSIONS:This study has identified C. thermocellum gene regulatory motifs and aspects of physiology and gene regulation for further study. The nexus between future systems biology studies and recently developed genetic tools for C. thermocellum offers the potential for more rapid strain development and for broader insights into this organism's physiology and regulation.

Project description:The aim of the present study was to obtain an overview of occupational safety culture by assessing and mapping determinants in different workplaces (hospital workplaces and workplaces in construction, manufacturing, and other industry sectors) using an already established theoretical framework with seven clusters developed by Cornelissen and colleagues. We further derived implications for further research on determinants of occupational safety culture for the hospital workplace by comparing the hospital workplace with other workplaces. We conducted an integrative literature review and searched systematically for studies in four research databases (PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PsycINFO). The search was undertaken in 2019, and updated in April 2020. Results of the included studies were analyzed and mapped to the seven clusters proposed by Cornelissen and colleagues. After screening 5566 hits, 44 studies were included. Among these, 17 studies were conducted in hospital workplaces and 27 were performed in other workplaces. We identified various determinants of an occupational safety culture. Most studies in hospital and other workplaces included determinants referring to management and colleagues, to workplace characteristics and circumstances, and to employee characteristics. Only few determinants in the studies referred to other factors such as socio-economic factors or to content relating to climate and culture. The theoretical framework used was helpful in classifying various determinants from studies at different workplaces. By comparing and contrasting results of studies investigating determinants at the hospital workplace with those addressing other workplaces, it was possible to derive implications for further research, especially for the hospital sector. To date, many determinants for occupational safety culture known from workplaces outside of the healthcare system have not been addressed in studies covering hospital workplaces. For further studies in the hospital workplace, it may be promising to address determinants that have been less studied so far to gain a more comprehensive picture of important determinants of an occupational safety culture in the hospital sector.

Dataset Information

Occupational Heat Stress Profiles in Selected Workplaces in India.

Publications

Occupational Heat Stress Profiles in Selected Workplaces in India.

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