Physiological Evaluation of Cooling Devices in Conjunction With Personal Protective Ensembles Recommended for Use in West Africa

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Disaster Med Public Health Prep
• Personal Author:
  Quinn, Tyler ; Kim, Jung-Hyun ; Strauch, Amanda ; Wu, Tianzhou ; Powell, Jeffery ; Roberge, Raymond ; Shaffer, Ronald ; Coca, Aitor
• Description:
  Objective:
  
  Cooling devices (CDs) worn under personal protective equipment (PPE) can alleviate some of the heat stress faced by health care workers responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
  
  Methods:
  
  Six healthy, young individuals were tested while wearing 4 different CDs or no cooling (control) under PPE in an environmental chamber (32°C/92% relative humidity) while walking (3 METs, 2.5 mph, 0% grade) on a treadmill for 60 minutes. Exercise was preceded by a 15-minute stabilization period and a 15-minute donning period.
  
  Results:
  
  The control condition resulted in a significantly higher rectal temperature (Tre) at the end of the exercise than did all CD conditions (CD1, P = 0.004; CD2, P = 0.01; CD3, P = 0.000; CD4, P = 0.000) with CD1 and CD2 resulting in a higher Tre than CD3 and CD4 (P < 0.05). The control condition resulted in a higher heart rate (HR) at the end of exercise than did the CD3 (P = 0.01) and CD4 (P = 0.009) conditions, whereas the HR of the CD1 and CD2 conditions was higher than that of the CD3 and CD4 conditions (P < 0.05). Weight loss in the control condition was higher than in the CD3 (P = 0.003) and CD4 (P = 0.01) conditions. Significant differences in subjective measurements of thermal stress were found across conditions and time.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  Use of CDs can be advantageous in decreasing the negative physiological and subjective responses to the heat stress encountered by health care workers wearing PPE in hot and humid environments.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Analysis Of Variance Cryotherapy Disaster Planning Environmental Exposure Heat Stress Disorders Hot Temperature Humans Personal Protective Equipment Surveys And Questionnaires
• Source:
  Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 11(5):573-579
• Pubmed ID:
  28303772
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9903158
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Place as Subject:
  Africa, Western
• Volume:
  11
• Issue:
  5
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:7c6e09b22e51cb4b88dd9d521d98bd0616adaf5c2453529fb6c816b5e2de1f66
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/124419/cdc_124419_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 584.62 KB ]