Falls Church, VA — The American Industrial Hygiene Association has unveiled a beta model of its new heat stress mobile app and is asking employers and out of doors employees to judge it.
Developed by AIHA’s Thermal Stress Working Group in partnership with East Carolina University, the app permits customers to enter potential heat stress elements equivalent to:
- Location(s)
- Intensity of workload (mild, reasonable, heavy or very heavy)
- Clothing kind (six completely different choices)
- Cloud protection (diploma of solar publicity)
Users also can choose their most popular language (English, Spanish, French or Portuguese).
The app makes use of native climate knowledge to calculate the moist bulb globe temperature – a metric of heat stress that includes air temperature, relative humidity, wind and radiant heat.
“Based on this calculated risk, the app delivers important notifications and reminders, including health recommendations such as rest breaks and water consumption based on an individual’s risk level, recommended heat stress prevention measures, warning signs of heat-related illness, and first aid recommendations to assist a worker in distress,” an AIHA press launch states.
The affiliation mentioned it expects to formally launch the app in September.
“As the climate continues to change, AIHA recognized the need to better protect workers from heat stress – which is why our team of occupational and environmental health and safety experts worked so diligently to develop an app that can more accurately gauge heat stress risks in real time, unlike any tool offered previously,” AIHA CEO Lawrence D. Sloan mentioned within the launch. “We encourage outdoor workers and employers, large and small, to test our new app during this beta phase and provide us with feedback to help us fine-tune the app’s functionality to better protect workers from heat-related illnesses.”
The app is out there for free on iOS and Android platforms.
