Every year, thousands of workers become sick from exposure to heat, and some even die. But your people don’t have to suffer. These illnesses and deaths are preventable.
With summer just around the corner and heat and humidity on the rise, many employers and workers need to start thinking about and planning to prevent employee heat-related illness.
Although OSHA doesn’t have a specific standard that covers working in hot conditions, under the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act, the company has a duty to protect their workers from recognized serious hazards in the workplace, including heat-related hazards.
OSHA has come out with a new Heat Safety App for your smart phone. This App is for your safety during those hot summer days. In this App you can enter in the temperature and humidity, which the App will then calculate informing you what the heat index is, what the precautions are and how much water you should be drinking. To download this App search OSHA Heat Safety in the App store for iPhone users, in the Market for Androids.
Click iPhone to preview the App for Apple user and click Android to preview the App for the Android Market.
This means right off the bat everyone need answers to three very important questions.
What Is Heat Illness?
The body normally cools itself by sweating. During hot weather, especially with high humidity, sweating isn’t enough. Body temperature can rise to dangerous levels if precautions are not taken. Heat illnesses range from heat rash and heat cramps to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Heat stroke can result in death and requires immediate medical attention.
Who Is Affected?
Workers exposed to hot and humid conditions are at risk of heat illness, especially those doing heavy work tasks or using bulky protective clothing and equipment. Some workers might be at greater risk than others if they have not built up a tolerance to hot conditions.
How Can Heat Illness Be Prevented?
Remember these three words:
Drinking water often, taking breaks, and limiting time in the heat can help prevent heat illness. Include these prevention steps in worksite training and plans.
Additional steps can also help prevent heat-related illness on the job whether employees are working outside or inside in a hot environment:
Using the Heat Index
Workers become overheated from two primary sources:
To make sure workers keep safe as the heat rises, review this table, which matches temperatures, risk levels, and protective measures for high temperatures:
Heat Index |
Risk Lev |
Protective Measures |
Less than 91ºF |
Lower caution |
Basic heat safety and planning |
91ºF to 103ºF |
Moderate |
Implement precautions and heighten awareness |
103ºF to 115ºF |
High |
Additional precautions to protect workers |
Greater than 115ºF |
Very high to extreme |
Triggers even more aggressive protective measures |
For lower caution risk level, encourage workers to:
For moderate risk level, encourage workers to take all of the precautions above, plus:
For the high risk level, you should take these additional precautions to protect workers:
For very high and extreme risk levels:
Now we will continue with the topic of heat illness, exploring factors other than ambient temperature that increase risks as well as reporting on symptoms of heat illness and first aid.
Heat Illness: Nothing to Fool Around With!
Not everyone reacts to heat to the same degree and not every work situation poses the risk of heat illness. Factors that increase an employee’s risk of heat illness in addition to ambient temperature include:
Heat Stroke
Heat stroke occurs when the body no longer sweats and holds so much heat that body temperature reaches dangerous levels. Heat stroke is life threatening. Without prompt identification and treatment, an employee could die.
Symptoms of heat stroke include:
First aid for heat stroke includes:
Heat Exhaustion
Heat exhaustion occurs when the body can’t replace fluids and/or salt lost in sweating. Though not as severe as heat stroke, untreated it can quickly get worse and become heat stroke.
Symptoms of heat exhaustion include:
First aid for heat exhaustion includes:
IMPORTANT: Make sure both supervisors and employee can recognize symptoms and know first aid for heat illness.