On a hot summer day in Oak Ridge, TennesseeDozens of men removed pipes, asbestos and hazardous waste as they worked to decontaminate a nuclear facility and prepare it for demolition.
Dressed from head to toe in overalls and equipped with breathing masks, the crew members, who toiled in a building without electricity, had no discernible respite from the heatInstead, they wore bracelets that recorded their heart rate, movement and exertion levels to detect signs of heat stress.
Stephanie Miller, a safety and health manager for a U.S. contractor doing cleanup work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, watched a nearby computer screen. A color-coding system with small bubbles showing each worker’s physiological data alerted her when any of them were in danger of overheating.
“Heat is one of the biggest risks we face in this work, even though we work with high levels of radiation, dangerous chemicals and heavy metals,” Miller said.
While the world experiences more Record temperaturesExplore employers wearable technologies To ensure the safety of workersNew devices collect biometric data to determine core body temperature – an elevated temperature is a symptom of heat exhaustion – and prompt workers to take cooling-down breaks.
The devices, originally developed for athletes, firefighters and military personnel, are being introduced at a time when the Atlantic Council is reducing heat-related losses in Labor productivity could cost the US about $100 billion annually.
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However, there are concerns about the security of medical data collected on employees, with some workers’ associations fearing that managers could use this data to penalize employees for taking necessary breaks.
“Any time you put a device on a worker, they’re very concerned about tracking, privacy and how can you use this against me,” said Travis Parsons, director of occupational health and safety at the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America. “There are a lot of exciting things out there, but there are no guardrails for it.”
HEAT DANGEROUS
The workers at the Tennessee cleanup site wearing heat stress monitors made by Atlanta-based SlateSafety are employed by United Cleanup Oak Ridge, a contractor with the U.S. Department of Energy, which has regulations to prevent overheating in the workplace.
But most U.S. workers lack protection from extreme heat because no federal regulations they require, and many vulnerable workers Do not speak or seek medical help. In July, the Biden administration proposed a rule to protect 36 million workers from heat-related illnesses.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 986 workers died from heat exposure in the United States between 1992 and 2022. Experts suspect the number is even higher because a coroner may not list heat as the cause of death if a roofer suffers a fatal fall in sweltering heat.
Attitude Occupational safety standards can be difficult because every person reacts differently to heat. This is where the manufacturers of portable devices want to start.
HOW PORTABLE HEATING TECHNOLOGY WORKS
Employers have identified heat-related symptoms in workers by taking their temperatures with thermometers, sometimes rectally. More recently, firefighters and military personnel have swallowed thermometer capsules.
“This simply could not have worked in our work environment,” said Rob Somers, Global Environment, Health and Safety Director at Consumer Product Perrigo Companysaid.
Instead, over 100 employees in the company’s infant formula factories were equipped with SlateSafety wristbands. The devices measure the wearer’s core body temperature and trigger an alarm when the reading reaches 38.5 degrees.
Another SlateSafety customer is a Cardinal Glass factory in Wisconsin, where four masons maintain a furnace that reaches 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
“They’re right up against the wall. So it’s them and the fire,” said Jeff Bechel, the company’s safety manager.
Cardinal Glass paid $5,000 for five wristbands, software and air monitoring devices. Bechel believes the investment will pay off; one employee’s two heat-related emergency room visits cost the company $15,000.
Another portable device, made by Massachusetts-based Epicore Biosystems, analyzes sweat to determine when workers are at risk of dehydration or overheating.
“Until a few years ago, you would just wipe off the sweat with a towel,” said CEO Rooz Ghaffari. “It turns out that all this information that we were missing is hidden there.”
Research has shown that some devices can successfully predict core body temperature in controlled environments, but their accuracy in dynamic workplaces is not yet proven, experts say. A 2022 research review found that factors such as age, gender and ambient humidity make it difficult to reliably measure body temperature with the technology.
Clad in protective gear, United Cleanup Oak Ridge workers can start to sweat even before demolition begins. Managers see dozens of sensor alerts every day.
Worker Xavier Allison, 33, recently removed heavy parts of the pipes Heatwave when his device vibrated. Since he was working with radioactive materials and asbestos, he couldn’t go outside to rest without going through a decontamination process, so he spent about 15 minutes in a nearby room that was just as hot.
“Just sit by yourself and try to cool down,” Allison said.
The bracelet notifies the worker when he or she has cooled down sufficiently and can resume work.
“Since we introduced the system, the number of people needing medical attention has dropped significantly,” Miller said.
Collection of personal data
United Cleanup Oak Ridge uses the Sensor data and an annual medical exam to determine work assignments, Miller said. When the company noticed patterns, it sent some employees to their primary care doctors, who discovered heart problems the employees hadn’t known about, she said.
At Perrigo, managers analyze the data to find people with multiple alerts and talk to them to find out if there is “a reason why they can’t work in that environment,” Somers said. The information is sorted by identification numbers, not names, when entered into the company’s software system, he said.
Companies that retain medical data for years increase Privacy concerns and whether bosses can use the information to kick an employee off health insurance or fire them, says Adam Schwartz, director of privacy litigation at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“Honestly, the device might hurt because you could raise your hand and say, ‘I need a break,’ and the boss might say, ‘No, your heart rate is not elevated, go back to work,'” Schwartz said.
To minimize such risks, employers should give their employees the choice of whether or not to wear monitoring devices, process only absolutely necessary data and delete the information within 24 hours, he said.
Wearing such devices can also expose workers to unwanted advertising, says Ikusei Misaka, a professor at Musashino University in Tokyo.
A partial solution
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health advises employers to develop a plan to help workers adapt to hot conditions and train them to recognize signs of heat-related illness and provide first aid. Wearable devices can be part of efforts to reduce heat stress, but their accuracy needs more study, says Doug Trout, the agency’s medical officer.
The technology must also be paired with access to breaks, shade and cool water, as many workers, especially in agriculturefear retaliation if they take a break to cool off or drink.
“If they don’t have water to drink and don’t have time to drink it, it doesn’t mean much,” said Juanita Constible, senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council. “It’s just something extra they have to carry around when they’re in the hot fields.”
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Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.
