Working in extreme temperatures, whether cold or hot, presents unique challenges and risks to health and safety. Properly managing these environmental conditions is crucial to ensuring the well-being and productivity of workers. Today, we’re exploring the essential topic of cold environments and how to effectively manage these extremes in the workplace.
This post will examine the effects of working in cold environments, the potential health risks, and practical strategies for protecting yourself and your team. By the end, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to handle extreme temperatures safely and maintain a healthy work environment.
What You’ll Learn
- Effects of Extreme Temperatures: Understand how cold environments impact worker health and performance.
- Health Risks and Symptoms: Learn about the specific health risks of extreme temperatures.
- Protective Strategies: Discover effective strategies and best practices for mitigating the risks of working in cold environments, ensuring a safer and healthier workplace.
Introduction
For those working outdoors during the winter months or inside workplaces such as cold rooms, cold stress can be a real problem. Just as excessive exposure to heat can place the body at risk, significant cooling of the body from its optimum core temperature can also be hazardous.
Clinically, hypothermia can occur when the body’s core temperature falls to about 35 C (95 F). Below this temperature, the risk of fatality increases until at temperatures below 30 C (86 F), the imminent death of an individual is likely due to cardiac arrest.
The Effects of Exposure to Cold
The first sign of the risk associated with exposure to cold conditions is pain, followed by numbness of the extremities (especially the fingers and toes). This is due to the body shunting warm blood to the core, away from non-vital areas such as the hands, feet, nose, cheeks, and ears. This can lead to frostbite. “Trenchfoot” or immersion foot can also occur.
As the cardiovascular system attempts to compensate for heat loss from the body, the metabolic rate rises. Maximum shivering occurs when the core body temperature is 35 C (95 F), known as hypothermia. As the body’s temperature decreases, cognitive reaction times slow, the metabolic rate increases to compensate for heat loss, and the body shivers.
Environmental Monitoring and Cold Stress Indices
Compared to heat stress, the number of indices available to predict outcomes and control exposure for cold exposure is extremely limited. The two main techniques are the wind chill temperature index and ACGIH TLV for cold stress.
Physiological Monitoring
Wearable personal sensors monitor environmental exposure in cold environments (Austad et al., 2019). An interesting study (Sugg et al., 2019) showed that we should watch for cold symptoms in both cold ambient temperatures and moderately cold ambient temperatures.
Controls for Cold
Exposure to extremely cold environments may lead to hypothermia, where the body’s core temperature falls below 35 C (95 F). However, not only the air temperature impacts the risk of cold stress. Low air temperatures aggravated by the wind, water immersion, and working in wet clothing all increase the risk. Depending upon the exposure situation, a combination of administrative controls and personal protective equipment may be the best option to minimize the risk of cold-induced illness. Some examples of controls include:
- Wam air jets, hot plates, or radiant heaters.
- Insulating handles of tools with thermal insulating materials.
- Anti-contact gloves with padding and insulation characteristics.
- Shielding the work area from the wind by enclosures (e.g., telecommunications workers repairing/joining lines while huddled under tents).
- Wearing water-impermeable or water-repellent clothing and changing outer clothing when it becomes wet.
- Wearing vapor barrier boots or changing socks frequently.
- Heated warming shelter for warming periods.
- Maintenance of hydration levels with warm soups and drinks.
Summary
Outdoor workers exposed to cold and windy conditions or workers in cold indoor conditions are at risk of cold stress. Similar to exposure to hot conditions, environmental and physiological monitoring may be needed to evaluate the health risk.
Helpful Resources
- Heat Exposure and Human Health in the Context of Climate Change, by Yuming Guo and Shanshan Li
- Human Health and Physical Activity during Heat Exposure, by Yuri Hosokawa
- Heat Exposure Blog Post, by Megan Tranter
- NIOSH Cold Stress Information
- OSHA Cold Stress Guide
- WorksafeBC Cold Stress Information
- HSE Cold Stress Information
Bibliography
Austad, H., Wiggen, Ø., FÆREVIK, H., & Seeberg, T. (2019). Towards a wearable sensor system for continuous occupational cold stress assessment. Industrial Health, 56(3). https://doi.org/10.2486/indhealth.2017-0162
Sugg, M., Stevens, S., & Runkle, J. (2019). Estimating personal ambient temperature in moderately cold environments for occupationally exposed populations. Environmental Research, 173, 497-507. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935119302002
