Addressing Climate Change in the Workplace

Existing approaches to assess the impact of climate change on human health, especially worker health, are oversimplified. Current models often fail to consider workplace exposures in the paradigm of personal, demographic, and societal factors that contribute to negative health outcomes. These deficiencies threaten to widen health inequalities among workers.

Climate change is the effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations resulting in changing weather patterns (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016). Climate change negatively impacts human health and well-being by exacerbating communicable and noncommunicable diseases and through attendant mental health and economic impacts (Watts et al., 2021). Multiple factors contribute to individual- and community-level vulnerability including preexisting disease, age, gender, access to safe and affordable housing, food insecurity, and access to health care (Rudolph et al., 2018).

Workplace exposures compound baseline vulnerability and exposure, contributing to an increased overall burden of climate-related health impacts (Schulte et al., 2016). The prevalence and severity of known occupational hazards, such as increasing ambient temperatures, ultraviolet radiation, drought and degraded water quality, vector-borne diseases, and wildfires, are expected to increase with climate change. This is especially worrisome for outdoor workers in labor-intensive jobs such as agriculture and construction. A worker’s adaptive capacity to these threats is affected by workplace policies and practices. The use of personal protective equipment, pay structures, safety education and training, and access to breaks, water, and shade all influence how well a worker can cope with these exposures (Kiefer et al., 2016).

Acute and long-term health impacts have been associated with these climate-related workplace hazards. These include heat-related illnesses ranging from dehydration to heat stroke, increased incidence of traumatic injuries, skin cancers, asthma, decreases in lung function, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Schulte et al., 2016). Understanding the interplay between individual- and community-level vulnerabilities and workplace policies and practices that impact the development of these health outcomes is vital for equitably addressing climate change in the workplace.

Occupational health providers (OHPs) play an important role in maintaining healthy and safe work environments. OHPs are positioned to ensure climate change is being equitably addressed in the workplace. It is important for OHPs to not only recognize and treat the health consequences stemming from climate change but also advocate for workplace-level policies and practices to protect workers. OHPs have an opportunity to communicate the health risks of climate change to both employees and employers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published a handbook on effective communication on climate change which can be viewed at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2017/08/Climate-Outreach-IPCC-communications-handbook.pdf.

There are resources that can redress the effects of climate change among workers, including The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommendations and resources for identifying and preventing heat stress in the workplace (https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/heatstress/). In addition, HEAT-SHIELD, which is funded by the European Union, provides a ready-made heat-defense plan for keeping workers safe and productive in the heat (https://www.heat-shield.eu/). Finally, additional information is provided by the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity whose mission is to “protect the health of people throughout the US in the face of climate change, especially those experiencing a higher share of exposures and impacts” (https://www.hhs.gov/ash/ocche/index.html).