When it comes to heat stress, you know what you need to do to protect workers, right? Eight ounces of cool water an hour, frequent breaks in the shade, planning heavy work for cooler times of day … You’ve got this.
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That’s what researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) thought, too—until the Deepwater Horizon disaster led to thousands of workers cleaning up the mess in the heat of a Gulf shore summer. NIOSH learned some important lessons about heat illness from that experience. As a result, the agency has updated its Criteria for a Recommended Standard: Occupational Exposure to Heat and Hot Environments for the first time since 1986.
Keep reading to find out what’s new in our understanding of heat illness.