Lemke B

Heat, human performance and occupational health -- a review and assessment of global climate change impacts

Authors: 
Kjellstrom T, Briggs D, Freyberg C, Lemke B, Otto M, Hyatt O
Year: 
2016

Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change.

Climate conditions, workplace heat and occupational health in South-East Asia in the context of climate change

Authors: 
Kjellstrom T, Lemke B, Otto M
Year: 
2017

Occupational health is particularly affected by high heat exposures in workplaces, which will be an increasing problem as climate change progresses. People working in jobs of moderate or heavy work intensity in hot environments are at particular risk, owing to exposure to high environmental heat and internal heat production. This heat needs to be released to protect health, and such release is difficult or impossible at high temperatures and high air humidity. A range of clinical health effects can occur, and the heat-related physical

Estimated work ability in warm outdoor environments depends on the chose heat stress assessment metric

Authors: 
Peter Bröde, Dusan Fiala, Bruno Lemke, Tord Kjellstrom
Year: 
2018

With a view to occupational effects of climate change, we performed a simulation study on the influence of different heat stress assessment metrics on estimated workability (WA) of labour in warm outdoor environments. Whole-day shifts with varying workloads were simulated using as input meteorological records for the hottest month from four cities with prevailing hot (Dallas, New Delhi) or warm-humid conditions (Managua, Osaka), respectively.

Estimating population heat exposure and impacts on working people in conjunction with climate change

Authors: 
Tord Kjellstrom, Chris Freyberg, Bruno Lemke, Matthias Otto, David Briggs
Year: 
2018

Increased environmental heat levels as a result of climate change present a major challenge to the health, wellbeing and sustainability of human communities in already hot parts of this planet. This challenge has many facets from direct clinical health effects of daily heat exposure to indirect effects related to poor air quality, poor access to safe drinking water, poor access to nutritious and safe food and inadequate protection from disease vectors and environmental toxic chemicals. The increasing environmental heat is a threat to environmental sustainability.

Extreme Heat and Migration

Authors: 
Mariam Traore Chazalnoël, Eva Mach, Dina Ionesco, Tord Kjellstrom, Bruno Lemke, Matthias Otto, David Briggs, Kerstin Zander, James Goodman, Lucy Fiske
Year: 
2017

The impacts of climate change on global temperatures profoundly affect people’s ability to sustain their livelihoods as well as their health; both of these dimensions in turn influence the migration of people. Indeed, increasing heat related to climate change is likely to result in more disruptive events, such as frequent droughts, wildfires, episodes of extreme temperatures and heat waves. Such events are already directly and indirectly displacing large numbers of people each year and likely to lead to the migration of more people in the future.

Heat, Human Performance, and Occupational Health: A Key Issue for the Assessment of Global Climate Change Impacts

Authors: 
Tord Kjellstrom, David Briggs, Chris Freyberg, Bruno Lemke, Matthias Otto, Olivia Hyatt
Year: 
2016

Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change. In

Climate Change and Labour: Impacts of Heat in the Workplace

Authors: 
Matthew McKinnon, Elise Buckle, Kamal Gueye, Isaiah Toroitich, Dina Ionesca, Eva Mach, Marina Maiero. TECHNICAL AUTHORS: Tord Kjellstrom, Matthias Otto, Bruno Lemke, Olivia Hyatt, Dave Briggs, Chris Freyberg, Lauren Lines
Year: 
2016

Developed in collaboration with the ILO, the International Organization for Migration, UNI Global Union, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Organization of Employers, and ACT Alliance, and together with the Climate Vulnerable Forum and the support of the the World Health Organisation, this report looks at the impact of rising temperatures due to climate change on the workforce.

The last Summer Olympics? Climate change, health, and work outdoors

Authors: 
Kirk R Smith, Alistair Woodward, Bruno Lemke, Matthias Otto, Cindy J Chang, Anna A Mance, John Balmes, Tord Kjellstrom
Year: 
2016

Climate change threatens human health in many ways, through heat waves, extreme weather events, and shifts in disease vectors, as well as economic and social stresses on populations living in or trying to escape areas affected by seawater intrusion, drought, lower agricultural productivity, and floods. 1 In the short term, most of these impacts could be substantially ameliorated by actions to reduce background disease risks and other known causes of vulnerability.

Current and Future Heat Stress in Nicaraguan Work Places under a Changing Climate

Authors: 
Sheffield PE, Herrera JG, Lemke B, Kjellstrom T, Romero LE
Year: 
2013

While climate change continues to increase ambient temperatures, the resulting heat stress exposure to workers in non-climate controlled settings is not well characterized, particularly in low and middle income countries. This preliminary report describes current heat stress in Nica-raguan work places and estimates occupational heat stress in 2050. From over 400 measurements of heat exposure using wet bulb globe temperature, more than 10% of all measurements exceeded the safety threshold for the combination of light work and rest at the ratio of 25:75.