HIGH Horizons - User-friendly tool for heat-related risk assessment of the working environment in health facilities - REPORT

This HIGH Horizons report (Deliverable D2.9) provides a practical and systematic procedure to identify and assess risks caused by working in high temperatures in healthcare settings, with the goal to prevent or reduce heat-related health risks, improve workers’ health and well-being, and ultimately the quality of care. The scope is health facilities in hot climate regions. Using the procedure requires knowledge of some of the terms and definitions that are relevant for assessing occupational heat stress, although expert knowledge should not be required. To a large degree, the suggested procedure relies on international standard ISO 8025 "Ergonomics of the thermal environment – management of working conditions in hot environments" (2024). This document describes the methods and practices for organizing the management of hot working environments and the supervision of the exposed persons. In addition, emphasis is placed on evaluating building-related features that may influence the heat exposure of the employees, and which may be modified to alleviate the heat stress. The procedure is not intended to perform a detailed, analytical evaluation of the risks involved in working in heat that may include measurement of both physical and physiological parameters. Actions involved in a more detailed, in-depth analysis are described in ISO 8025 (2024). Rather, the target group includes people with an engagement in occupational health, such as generalists, or employers with a responsibility of securing an appropriate work environment. Also, if they wish, employees can use the procedure to do a screening and assessment of their own working environment. The report first briefly describes the effects of heat on people and then the connection between different risk factors and heat strain. Eventually, a checklist is suggested to assess and quantify the risk factors. The checklist may be used to evaluate the actions that may be necessary to alleviate heat stress for the employees in a particular healthcare facility. This checklist is seperately available (see Related works).