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What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?

Heat exposure can be a health hazard for many Australian workers in both outdoor and indoor situations. With many heat-related incidents left unreported, it is often difficult to determine the underlying causal factors. This study aims to provide insights into perceptions of potentially unsafe or un...

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Autores principales: Hansen, Alana, Pisaniello, Dino, Varghese, Blesson, Rowett, Shelley, Hanson-Easey, Scott, Bi, Peng, Nitschke, Monika
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5877004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29509710
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030459
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author Hansen, Alana
Pisaniello, Dino
Varghese, Blesson
Rowett, Shelley
Hanson-Easey, Scott
Bi, Peng
Nitschke, Monika
author_facet Hansen, Alana
Pisaniello, Dino
Varghese, Blesson
Rowett, Shelley
Hanson-Easey, Scott
Bi, Peng
Nitschke, Monika
author_sort Hansen, Alana
collection PubMed
description Heat exposure can be a health hazard for many Australian workers in both outdoor and indoor situations. With many heat-related incidents left unreported, it is often difficult to determine the underlying causal factors. This study aims to provide insights into perceptions of potentially unsafe or uncomfortably hot working conditions that can affect occupational health and safety using information provided by the public and workers to the safety regulator in South Australia (SafeWork SA). Details of complaints regarding heat exposure to the regulator’s “Help Centre” were assembled in a dataset and the textual data analysed thematically. The findings showed that the majority of calls relate to indoor work environments such as kitchens, factories, and warehouses. The main themes identified were work environment, health effects, and organisational issues. Impacts of hot working conditions ranged from discomfort to serious heat-related illnesses. Poor management practices and inflexibility of supervisors featured strongly amongst callers’ concerns. With temperatures predicted to increase and energy prices escalating, this timely study, using naturalistic data, highlights accounts of hot working conditions that can compromise workers’ health and safety and the need for suitable measures to prevent heat stress. These could include risk assessments to assess the likelihood of heat stress in workplaces where excessively hot conditions prevail.
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spelling pubmed-58770042018-04-09 What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database? Hansen, Alana Pisaniello, Dino Varghese, Blesson Rowett, Shelley Hanson-Easey, Scott Bi, Peng Nitschke, Monika Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Heat exposure can be a health hazard for many Australian workers in both outdoor and indoor situations. With many heat-related incidents left unreported, it is often difficult to determine the underlying causal factors. This study aims to provide insights into perceptions of potentially unsafe or uncomfortably hot working conditions that can affect occupational health and safety using information provided by the public and workers to the safety regulator in South Australia (SafeWork SA). Details of complaints regarding heat exposure to the regulator’s “Help Centre” were assembled in a dataset and the textual data analysed thematically. The findings showed that the majority of calls relate to indoor work environments such as kitchens, factories, and warehouses. The main themes identified were work environment, health effects, and organisational issues. Impacts of hot working conditions ranged from discomfort to serious heat-related illnesses. Poor management practices and inflexibility of supervisors featured strongly amongst callers’ concerns. With temperatures predicted to increase and energy prices escalating, this timely study, using naturalistic data, highlights accounts of hot working conditions that can compromise workers’ health and safety and the need for suitable measures to prevent heat stress. These could include risk assessments to assess the likelihood of heat stress in workplaces where excessively hot conditions prevail. MDPI 2018-03-06 2018-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5877004/ /pubmed/29509710 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030459 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hansen, Alana
Pisaniello, Dino
Varghese, Blesson
Rowett, Shelley
Hanson-Easey, Scott
Bi, Peng
Nitschke, Monika
What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title_full What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title_fullStr What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title_full_unstemmed What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title_short What Can We Learn about Workplace Heat Stress Management from a Safety Regulator Complaints Database?
title_sort what can we learn about workplace heat stress management from a safety regulator complaints database?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5877004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29509710
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030459
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