Doctoral Student Receives Grant to Evaluate Occupational Heat Stress

Environmental Health doctoral student Emmanuel Odame is the recipient of a pilot grant to critically evaluate methods of predicting the risk of occupational heat stress in east Tennessee’s agricultural crop sector.  “Toward Evidence-Based Management of Heat Stress for Crop Workers in Central Appalachia” will rely, in part, on data collected by ETSU’s community partner, Rural Medical Services, at summer health screenings on tomato farms since 2010.

“We know the dates of the health screenings,” said Dr. Ken Silver, Odame’s advisor and co-Principal Investigator on the grant.  “And we can obtain historical weather station data,” he said.  “So is there a correlation between signs and symptoms of heat stress and weather conditions on those days?” the researchers will ask.

“We’ll also look at the correlation between field measurements with a wet bulb globe thermometer in the summer of 2018 and predictions made by two widely used phone apps,” Odame said.  “If the apps make good predictions at the local level, then we’ll recommend the industry use them as management tools to prevent heat stress,” he added.  In future decades as global warming worsens, an early heat stress warning system could be developed by ETSU and its partners.

The project will also analyze whether workers with diabetes have higher rates of heat stress signs and symptoms than their co-workers, an association that has some support in the health literature.

The grant, budgeted for over $13,000, was awarded by the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the University of Kentucky, home to the first accredited college of public health in Central Appalachia.