Scoping review on the state of the integration of human physiological responses to evaluating heat-stress

Heat Stress Adaptation within Informal, Low-Income Urban Settlements in Africa

Climate projections indicate that persistent high temperatures and related heat stress will become a common experience in the future, across Africa. It is, therefore, important to understand challenges that might result from increasing extreme heat conditions, and how humans within urban centres can adapt. In this article, we provide a review that considers the experience of poor urban residents with extreme temperatures and adaptation strategies in relation to low-income, informal urban contexts in Africa. Our analysis is carried out across four focus countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt. Only cursory insights exist in the context of informal settlements. We found that heat stress remains an overlooked topic in comparison to other climate change adaptation needs. Evidence shows that adaptation strategies varied and differed in framing, scale, and applied methods across the contexts. Adaptation strategies dominantly examine a broad variety of alternative building measures and, to a lesser degree, greening/nature-based strategies. It is important to highlight heat stress as a cross-cutting, focal topic in urban research in relation to informal settlements and generally broaden the spectrum. It is worthwhile to pay special attention to strategic actions and research designs that foresee win–win and co-beneficial options for local urban communities.

Heat Strain Evaluation of Power Grid Outdoor Workers Based on a Human Bioheat Model

Power grid outdoor workers are usually exposed to hot environments and could suffer the threats to occupational health and safety like heat strain and injury. In order to predict and assess the thermophysiological responses of grid workers in the heat, the clothing thermal insulation of grid worker ensembles was measured by a thermal manikin and a multi-segment human bioheat model was employed to evaluate the thermophysiological response parameters of grid workers such as core temperature, skin temperature and sweat loss. The results show that working in a hot environment can cause a obvious increase in core temperature and skin temperature of grid workers, and the acceptable maximum working time of grid workers varies greatly in different hot environments. A reasonable work organization strategy can effectively decrease the core temperature and sweat loss, increasing the duration of acceptable maximum working time for grid workers. This study is helpful to assess heat-related risks of grid workers and support power grid companies to rationalize work organization strategies and personal protection guidelines.