Millions of Americans sweat their way through the work week. Ask anyone from welders to pastry chefs, road construction employees to factory workers during a New York summer: Extremely hot and humid working conditions are a fact of life in many workplaces in the United States.

And if you're one of those getting hot under the collar at work this summer, you should be aware of the health problems associated with laboring in extreme heat.

In rare cases, heat can be deadly. Heat stroke, which occurs when the body's regulatory system fails and body temperature rises too high, can cause brain damage or death. Extreme heat can also lead to on-the-job accidents as well as less serious ills like heat cramps, prickly heat, and heat exhaustion.

Here are some tips for bicycle messengers, fry cooks, and anyone else whose job feels too hot to handle.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) make the following recommendations to both workers and employers:

•Drink fluids. Water or any cool liquid (except, of course, alcoholic beverages) should be readily available at all times, and workers should be encouraged to drink about one cup (8 ounces) every 20 minutes. An electrolyte solution may also be helpful in maintaining body fluids.

•Seek out cool rest areas and take frequent breaks. Research shows that taking frequent breaks in rest areas where the temperature is about 76 degrees can significantly reduce heat stress. Don't work longer in order to take longer breaks, though -- shorter work-rest cycles are most beneficial.

•Monitor your workers. To get an idea of how much heat stress the staff is experiencing, employers may want to monitor some or all of their employees' heart rates, recovery heart rates (after rest), body temperatures, and daily weight loss from sweating. If you'd like to measure your own heart rate, check your pulse at the beginning of your rest period. If it's over 110 beats per minute, you're probably under too much heat stress. Two and a half minutes later, take a reading of your "recovery heart rate." If it is less than 10 beats per minute slower than your first reading, you may be getting hotter than you should be.

•Wear comfortable clothing. When the temperature of the work environment is higher than your normal body temperature (98.6 degrees), protective clothing can help prevent the transfer of heat from the air around you to your body. Choose carefully, however: If the clothes interfere with the evaporation of sweat, the advantage can be cancelled out. Insulated gloves and suits or reflective clothing and faceshields may be useful in some environments.

•Open the windows. It may seem obvious, but opening windows and installing fans or air blowers can make a tremendous difference. To reduce radiant heat, insulate furnaces, ovens, and other heat-creating devices and place shields over hot surfaces that are within a worker's line of sight.

•Protect yourself during a heat wave. Heat illnesses usually increase during spells of unusually hot weather. When possible, the most stressful tasks should be performed in the early morning hours or at night. You should also try to get plenty of sleep to cope with the extra stress, and avoid drinking alcohol since it dehydrates the body.

-- Paige Bierma is a health and medical writer living in San Francisco and a regular contributor to Consumer Health Interactive.

Further Resources

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

(800) 356-4674

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh

Occupational Safety &Health Administration (OSHA)

(800) 321-6742

http://www.osha.gov

References

First published June 14, 2000
Last updated September 29, 2008
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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