Investigation on heat stress of construction workers in summer in Chongqing, China

Longqian Li,Jiaze He,Lu Chen,Hong Liu

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/20198003005

Abstract

The heat stress of workers at construction sites in Chongqing, China, was studied in this paper. The investigation included measurement of environmental parameters, measurement of physiological parameters, questionnaire survey and tracking record of their self-regulation of the behaviour. Scaffolder, carpenter, porter, plasterer and handymen were taken as the main research subjects. Five subjects were selected daily to conduct a questionnaire survey and to measure their physiological parameters, 60 construction workers were investigated. The results show that in sizzling summer, the average effective Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGTeff) is 35.8 ° C. Under these circumstances, workers are in a poor working environment based on some Chinese and international standards. During the experiment, the researchers recorded the work behaviour and self-regulation of workers. It is found that the average heart rate of workers with different job is significantly different, and the average metabolic rate of handymen is significantly lower than that of piling rig workers. Different type of workers should be protected by different protection rules to avoid suffering heat injury.

Highlights

With the economic development and social progress, people began to pay more and more attention to the occupational hazards in all kinds of work
When the heat storage effect exceeds the physiological range of human body temperature regulation, it may lead to several types of heat diseases
As technology advances, labor in some extremely harsh environments has been replaced by various machines or equipment, much remains to be done by manual work, such as long-term outdoor work in the construction workers, sanitation workers, postmen

Summary

Introduction

With the economic development and social progress, people began to pay more and more attention to the occupational hazards in all kinds of work. In hot temperature environment, engaged in a certain intensity of manual labor, if not fully protected, easy to accumulate heat due to the body, causing the core temperature, leading to normal functioning of internal organs decline in body and water and salt imbalances and other issues. In the summer of 2018, several cases of heat diseases have taken place in Chongqing City, Shaanxi Province, Jiangsu Province and Macao Special Administrative Region in China, causing dozens of people died, including outdoor workers such as construction workers and sanitation workers. As technology advances, labor in some extremely harsh environments has been replaced by various machines or equipment, much remains to be done by manual work, such as long-term outdoor work in the construction workers, sanitation workers, postmen. When the weather is hot outdoors in summer, these types of work are more susceptible to heat load

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion