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A document issued by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), looks at the impact of heat and heatwaves on workers’ health, safety and wellbeing, alongside social inequalities.
Weather-related heat exposure has become a sanitary concern given the wide repercussions it has for health. Both physiological and epidemiological research show that the impact of heat on human health goes far beyond acute heat conditions such as potentially fatal heat strokes.
Heat exacerbates the problems associated with a wide variety of cardiovascular, respiratory and other acute illnesses and reproductive health. It notes that, during heatwaves, there is an increase in injury-related mortality in comparison with that experienced in communities’ usual climates; a part of this is occupationally-related.
Some jobs have become exposed as a result of the ‘non-stop’ economy and the contemporary management of working time.
The article argues that weather-related heat stress should be considered an escalating occupational hazard that deserves full societal recognition in order to be considered as an emerging occupational risk requiring public action.
Impact of heatwaves on workers’ health, safety and wellbeingA document issued by the ETUI, looks at the impact of heat and heatwaves on workers’ health, safety and wellbeing and on social inequalities.
Barbour EHS
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