225 Mapping simultaneous exposure to heat stress, air pollution and airborne allergenic pollen, for the general and working population

Climate change is expected to increase exposure to environmental health risk factors, including extreme temperatures, air pollution and airborne allergenic pollen. Outdoor and manual workers are a particularly vulnerable group for exposure to heat and humidity because their work may involve heavy exertion, and they might have less capacity to lose heat because of the need to wear personal protective clothing. The objective of this research is to visualize and quantify the extent of simultaneous exposure to multiple environmental risk factors throughout Europe for both workers and the general population. Exposure data for all three stressors were output for the period in between 1 May 2022 until 31 August 2022. For each stressor a threshold was set using either official threshold values, or proposed using available literature. To account for differences in experienced heat stress amongst groups, the heat-stress index was adjusted to resemble a worker involved in heavy labor whilst wearing a full working outfit. Simultaneous exposure to heat stress, air pollution and airborne allergenic pollen is most evident for Northern Italy. Male and female workers with a high-risk profile for heat stress are at increased risk for simultaneous exposure to multiple stressors, as the area of co-exposure hotspots in Europe is over three to six times higher for these worker groups, respectively. Although it remains challenging to derived threshold values for evaluating hourly exposure data, we provide a framework to visualize and quantify simultaneous exposure to different environmental factors in Europe. The map and datasets are freely available online.