From Agricultural Fields to Urban Asphalt: The Role of Worker Education to Promote California's Heat Illness Prevention Standard

Abstract

This article describes an innovative approach to reach and educate workers and worker advocates about California's outdoor heat illness prevention standard. In 2010, Cal/OSHA initiated a statewide education campaign to reduce heat-related illnesses and fatalities and increase awareness of the standard's requirements. In Southern California, the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program (LOSH) focused on three principal strategies of community-based outreach, popular education, and organizational capacity building. Central to the LOSH approach was the integration of health promotores into core program planning and training activities and the expansion of campaign activities to a wide variety of rural and urban workers. We describe each of these strategies and analyze the possibilities and constraints of worker education to support implementation of this standard, particularly given the vulnerabilities of the impacted workforce, the often precarious nature of employment arrangements for these workers, and the resource limitations of Cal/OSHA.

Potential escalation of heat-related working costs with climate and socioeconomic changes in China

“…Finally, there is an inherent ambiguity in the AMHP2012. The stated goal is to prevent employers from exposing workers to health-impairing heat, but if the HTS cost is not large enough, as revealed in most cases under the fixed standard, the employers may prefer to pay the subsidy rather than reducing the working time (35). Weak costs could have additional perverse effects, such as encouraging work in potentially dangerous conditions or conversely, discouraging employers from investment into costly protecting measures, like air conditioning, for indoor workers.…”

“…This possibility calls for complementary strategies to protect the workers while limiting escalation of heat-related working costs. The recent enforcement of mandatory heat standards in two states in the United States, California and Washington, which do not include any HTS but focus on education and training (35)(36)(37), may offer lessons to guide a more effective implementation of the Chinese heat stress prevention.…”

Perceptions of Workplace Heat Exposure and Controls among Occupational Hygienists and Relevant Specialists in Australia

“…The results showed that about half of respondents were not satisfied with current heat prevention measures, reflecting the necessity to upgrade current heat policies and strategies. Australia has mandatory heat regulations in place to protect workers from extreme heat; however, at present there are many ambiguities which may hinder implementation and effectiveness [ 4 , 36 ]. According to the survey results, provision of cool drinking water was the most common heat prevention measure, which is also required by the national Model Code of Practice (managing the work environment and facilities) [ 37 ]; however, this is not available in all Australian workplaces according to the results of this study.…”

“…the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) [ 39 ]) have made specific heat stress management guidelines. Nevertheless, the unenforceable and non-mandatory nature of the guidelines may raise the problem of low compliance [ 36 , 40 ].…”

“…Therefore, in 2011, the US OSHA launched a nationwide campaign to raise heat risk awareness in the workplace [ 41 ]. Heat prevention barriers may also include lack of training and management commitment, low compliance and implementation of heat prevention policies, and lack of financial resources, which have been identified by previous heat studies in the USA [ 36 , 42 ]. In addition, the increase of the fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) work regime may prove a challenge for heat acclimatisation [ 15 ].…”