Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Commons^™

Mine Workers, Heat Related Illnesses, And The Role Of The Occupational Health Nurse, Kim Bourne

Nursing Faculty Publications

Across the United States, workers in m any occupations face weather and related extreme conditions on a daily basis. Hot weather and manual labor increase a person’s core body temperature. This heat gain comes from a combination of environmental and self-generated (or internal) heat. Environmental heat is both weather related and man-made, and internal heat is produced from metabolic processes (Xiang, Bi, Pisaniello, & Hansen, 2014). But, it’s just not the heat that causes problems; it’s the humidity, too. E ach year thousands of workers suffer heat related illnesses as a result of becoming overheated. Between June, 2013 and July, …