Perkison presents study results at International Conference on Occupational Health in Morocco

Published: June 21, 2024

Dr. William "Brett" Perkison, MD, MPH, the occupational medicine residency program director for the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH) at UTHealth Houston, presented a poster at the International Conference on Occupational Health in Marrakesh, Morocco in May that discussed the urgent need for workplaces to incorporate both temperature and ambient air pollution levels in to their heat stress prevention programs.

The poster “Workers Feel Heat and Air Pollution: Expansion of the Role of Heat Stress Programs”, was co-authored by Poune Saberi, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

“Going to this conference gave me a chance to hear, firsthand, about some of the occupational and environmental hazards that workers and communities are facing around the globe,” Dr. Perkison said. “Workers around the globe manufacture products that are ultimately consumed in the United States. Learning more about the health hazards that these workers face put into perspective how broad our responsibilities are as U.S. health professionals to truly be able to make a given product is safety produced” 

The poster presented a comprehensive review of the literature that supported the urgent need for workplaces to update heat stress programs by incorporating the combined health risks of both temperature and air pollution into their protocols. As outdoor temperatures rise the toxicity of air pollutants, including particulate matter, nitric oxides, and ozone also increase. This results in high risk workers to be particularly susceptible to the combined health risk of heat stress, pulmonary inflammation, and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore the poster presented medical surveillance as being a particularly valuable tool for helping to identify the workers that need particularly careful monitoring during high heat and high air pollution days.

“Screening for underlying cardiopulmonary disease risk is relatively easy, especially when compared to many other diseases. Based on a number of easily obtained biometric measurements and medical history, an individual’s cardiovascular risk profile can estimated. Similarly, pulmonary function tests that commonly available at worksites can also identify employees who have underlying pulmonary disease. High risk workers who have underlying heart and lung disease would be alerted when temperature and air pollution levels reached an established threshold level. Additional heat stress prevention measures could be implemented for these workers to keep them safe during high risk periods." 

Another tool for keeping workers safe includes the use of personal monitors. These monitors can measure a number of physiological indicators of early heat stress, pulmonary difficulty, or cardiovascular disease, including heart rate, heart rate variability, estimated core body temperatures, respiratory rate, and musculoskeletal exertion rates.”

The monitors can be worn comfortably as chest straps that do not impair workers

“An added benefit to developing a more comprehensive risk assessment of heat stress and air pollution is that the evidence further quantifies the importance of curbing global greenhouse emissions, which will only continue to increase these risks in the future.   

The SWCOEH provides graduate-level training opportunities for occupational and environmental health professionals through our industrial hygiene, occupational and environmental medicine, occupational epidemiology, and Total Worker Health® programs.