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Abstract Introduction Heat stress could influence the health and wellbeing of outdoor workers. Despite the growing attention to the impacts of climate changes on work, the possibility of monitoring the individual response to heat stress has not previously investigated. Objective To evaluate the relationship between heat stress parameters and individual cardio-respiratory response during outdoor working activities by innovative wearable devices. Methods Forty healthy workers employed in different outdoor contexts wore, during their entire work shift, a multiparametric wearable device integrating sensors measuring skin temperature, partial oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, heart rate, position and movement of the worker. During the same shifts, measurements were taken of the climatic conditions in the working area. Results Climatic and cardiorespiratory parameters analysis showed a positive correlation between radiant temperature and both minimum skin temperature and heart rate (r 0.64 and 0.63 respectively, p0.01), while a negative correlation was observed with maximum respiratory rate (r -0.7, p0.01). In contrast, air temperature showed a significant positive correlation with mean skin temperature and with minimum heart rate (r 0.78 and 0.65 respectively, p0.01). Conclusions The multiparametric devices made it possible to identify individual cardiorespiratory response to different climatic conditions and to assess the adaptation of workers to thermal stress, enabling a precision medicine approach.
Sacino et al. (Sat,) studied this question.