Abstract
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of personal cooling strategies (PCSs) in reducing human heat stress, and determine the appropriate cooling strategies for medical workers. A meta-analysis method is employed to summarize, analyze and compare the effects of various PCSs on human physiological and psychological responses as well as performance, and to provide solid suggestions for selecting the optimal PCS for medical workers. External body cooling strategies (EBCSs) are found to exert large benefits in improving human physiological and psychological responses as well as human performance, and is more effective than internal body cooling strategies (IBCSs). IBCSs showed moderate effect in reducing core temperature, which may be practical for medical workers in extremely high outdoor temperatures and could be applied before wearing PPE. Liquid cooling clothing (LCC) provides larger cooling benefits than other types of EBCSs, then followed by air-cooling clothing (ACC) and hybrid cooling clothing (HCC), and phase change cooling clothing (PCMC) and semiconductor cooling device (SCD) ranks the last. Considering their applications for medical workers, nonportable LCC and ACC with cooling devices placed aside are practical for medical workers working in indoors or around buildings with less body movement and fewer postures; whereas portable LCC using a backpack and ACC using air fans are suitable for most medical workers with large range movements working in various locations. When using ACC, an air filtration system should be used together to filter the ambient air. SCD in the form of cooling chairs is only applicable for sedentary medical work around buildings in high outdoor temperatures. PCMC is more preferable for medical workers who work for a relatively short time or could change the PCM packs during work. This review serves as a foundational reference source for the selection or construction of highly effective and practical PCSs to reduce heat stress of medical workers.
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