Heat Stress: Expert Insight from Athletics and Industry

Heat Stress: Expert Insight from Athletics and Industry

 

Join a panel of health and safety professionals as they discuss the challenges of creating and implementing successful heat stress programs without disrupting morale or productivity.

This session uses knowledge, advice and research findings from industry and athletics to help attendees get answers to their most prevalent questions including

Understanding what heat stress is and how it affects the body

  • Internal temperature regulation
  • Cellular processes
  • Body shut down at 104 degrees F
  • What to do in a heat stress emergency
  • Athletes during strenuous activity vs non-strenuous

Understanding your environment

  • Challenges faced in a variety of work settings
  • Indoor vs Outdoor: differences and ways to approach each setting to mitigate heat related illnesses 
  • Products/technologies that would work in various applications: evaporative vs phase change cooling
  • Occupational athlete: what is this and how can we take the learnings from athletes and apply that to those in the workforce
  • How to put a prevention plan in place

What does a prevention plan look like

  • Scheduling, breaks, shade, water, etc – look at what they do in athletics
  • How to get buy-in to support a heat stress prevention program
  • When does the plan go into effect? Temperature/conditions?
  • CalOSHA success on heat stress fatalities and injuries

What OSHA says about heat stress 

  • General Duty Clause
  • Water. Rest. Shade.
  • National Emphasis Program (NEP)

Championing a heat stress program also requires a basic understanding of how the body reacts to heat and how to adjust to rising temperatures and the increased demands it puts on a worker. Beyond creating and implementing a heat stress plan, this session will help the audience understand the environment in which employees are working and offer guidance as to what cooling technologies work in different environments and/or applications.

While most heat stress discussions focus on the outdoor worker there are factors which occur in an indoor setting that will be discussed as well.