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Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas

During the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, most citizens were cooperative towards the face-masking policy; however, undeniably, face masking has increased complaints of thermal discomfort to varying degrees and resulted in potential health hazards during summer. Thus, a thermal comfort survey was co...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Yuchun, He, Huiyu, Dai, Kunquan, Lin, Zhang, Fang, Zhaosong, Zheng, Zhimin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9911159/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36789268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110058
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author Zhang, Yuchun
He, Huiyu
Dai, Kunquan
Lin, Zhang
Fang, Zhaosong
Zheng, Zhimin
author_facet Zhang, Yuchun
He, Huiyu
Dai, Kunquan
Lin, Zhang
Fang, Zhaosong
Zheng, Zhimin
author_sort Zhang, Yuchun
collection PubMed
description During the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, most citizens were cooperative towards the face-masking policy; however, undeniably, face masking has increased complaints of thermal discomfort to varying degrees and resulted in potential health hazards during summer. Thus, a thermal comfort survey was conducted under tree-shaded areas generally preferred by pedestrians to explore the thermal response of face-masked pedestrians. Thirty-two subjects, with and without masks, participated in walking experiments, and their thermal parameters and physiological indicators were recorded; moreover, the subjects were asked to fill in subjective questionnaires. The results showed that although tree shades significantly reduced the average radiant temperature, dampness in the mask may cause some discomfort symptoms, among which intense sweating (54.55%) and tachycardia (42.18%) accounted for the largest proportion. Based on thermal indices, it could be concluded that face-masking does not significantly affect the thermal comfort of subjects walking in shaded areas. Notably, a 30-min walk in tree-shaded areas with face masking does not adversely affect human health or quality of life. Thus, the present assessment of the thermal safety of humans in shaded environments provides reference data for determining thermal comfort levels during outdoor walking with face masking.
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spelling pubmed-99111592023-02-10 Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas Zhang, Yuchun He, Huiyu Dai, Kunquan Lin, Zhang Fang, Zhaosong Zheng, Zhimin Build Environ Article During the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, most citizens were cooperative towards the face-masking policy; however, undeniably, face masking has increased complaints of thermal discomfort to varying degrees and resulted in potential health hazards during summer. Thus, a thermal comfort survey was conducted under tree-shaded areas generally preferred by pedestrians to explore the thermal response of face-masked pedestrians. Thirty-two subjects, with and without masks, participated in walking experiments, and their thermal parameters and physiological indicators were recorded; moreover, the subjects were asked to fill in subjective questionnaires. The results showed that although tree shades significantly reduced the average radiant temperature, dampness in the mask may cause some discomfort symptoms, among which intense sweating (54.55%) and tachycardia (42.18%) accounted for the largest proportion. Based on thermal indices, it could be concluded that face-masking does not significantly affect the thermal comfort of subjects walking in shaded areas. Notably, a 30-min walk in tree-shaded areas with face masking does not adversely affect human health or quality of life. Thus, the present assessment of the thermal safety of humans in shaded environments provides reference data for determining thermal comfort levels during outdoor walking with face masking. Elsevier Ltd. 2023-04-01 2023-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9911159/ /pubmed/36789268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110058 Text en © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Yuchun
He, Huiyu
Dai, Kunquan
Lin, Zhang
Fang, Zhaosong
Zheng, Zhimin
Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title_full Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title_fullStr Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title_full_unstemmed Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title_short Thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: An outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
title_sort thermal responses of face-masked pedestrians during summer: an outdoor investigation under tree-shaded areas
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9911159/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36789268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110058
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