Heat Stress Risk Profiles for Three Non-Woven Coveralls

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ashley CD ; Bernard, Thomas E. ; Garzón-Villalba XP ; Wu Y
• Description:
  The ACGIH Threshold Limit Value (TLV) is used to limit heat stress exposures so that most workers can maintain thermal equilibrium. That is, the TLV was set to an upper limit of Sustainable exposures for most people. This paper addresses the ability of the TLV to differentiate between Sustainable and Unsustainable heat exposures for four clothing ensembles over a range of environmental factors and metabolic rates (M). The four clothing ensembles (woven clothing, and particle barrier, water barrier and vapor barrier coveralls) represented a wide range of evaporative resistances. Two progressive heat stress studies provided data on 480 trials with 1440 pairs of Sustainable and Unsustainable exposures for the clothing over three levels of relative humidity (rh) (20, 50 and 70%), three levels of metabolic rate (115, 180, and 254 Wm-2) using 29 participants. The exposure metric was the difference between the observed wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) and the TLV. Risk was characterized by odds ratios (ORs), Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and dose-response curves for the four ensembles. Conditional logistic regression models provided information on ORs. Logistic regressions were used to determine ROC curves with area under the curve (AUC), model the dose-response curve, and estimate offsets from woven clothing. The ORs were about 2.5 per 1 degrees C-WBGT for woven clothing, particle barrier and water barrier and for vapor barrier at 50% rh. When using the published Clothing Adjustment Values (CAVs, also known as Clothing Adjustment Factors, CAFs) or the offsets that included different values for vapor barrier based on rh, the AUC for all clothing was 0.86. When the fixed CAVs of the TLV were used, the AUC was 0.81. In conclusion, (1) ORs and the shapes of the dose-response curves for the nonwoven coveralls were similar to woven clothing, and (2) CAVs provided a robust way to account for the risk of nonwoven clothing. The robust nature of CAV extended to the exclusion of different adjustments for vapor barrier by rh. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Environment Environmental Monitoring Heat Stress Disorders Hot Temperature Humidity Occupational Health Particulate Matter Personal Protective Equipment Protective Clothing Risk Assessment Safety Solvents Temperature

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• Keywords:
  Analytical Models Analytical Processes Author Keywords: Heat Stress CAV Clothing Dose Response Environmental Factors Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure Limit Exposure Limits Heat Heat-exposure Heat-stress Humans Metabolic Rate Particulates Protective Clothing Regression Analysis Relative-humidity Risk-analysis Statistical Analysis Temperature-effects Thermal Effects Threshold Limit Values TLV Vapors WBGT Work Clothing

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• ISSN:
  1545-9624
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Florida ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  80-85
• Volume:
  15
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20050518
• Citation:
  J Occup Environ Hyg 2018 Jan; 15(1):80-85
• Contact Point Address:
  Thomas E. Bernard, University of South Florida, College of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, 13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, FL 33612-3805
• Email:
  tbernard@health.usf.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Sunshine Education and Research Center, University of South Florida
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• End Date:
  20290630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8cb15a6b9870a0e0b1b11ed8df417e37ff0e3435ac2610bb7394a3e339ac30e80605c45862d1fb3e3ba1ad375de1ce79b11f25fef8a40a1727cb0d81653431a4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/210830/cdc_210830_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 799.73 KB ]