Publication Offers Guidance for Working Safely in Hot Environments

HAMILTON, ON (May 30, 2005) The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) has published a new pocket guide to help people working in hot environments manage the risk and avoid overheating. Whether it be in a restaurant kitchen without air conditioning or in a foundry, surrounded by vats of molten metal, working in a hot environment can be more than just unpleasant. Its a potential health hazard.

Working in Hot Environments: A Health and Safety Guide leads the reader through health and safety law, outlining the employers and employees rights and responsibilities when it comes to preventing heat stress. The reader will gain a good understanding of occupational exposure limits and thermal comfort guidelines, as well as how heat exposure is measured. A section on legislative authorities in Canada and the US lists contact information and web links for easy reference.

The 96-page publication outlines how to use engineering and administrative controls for maintaining a comfortable, safe temperature and climate in the workplace, and also provides recommended personal protective equipment and sample safe work practices. A section on the different heat related illnesses, including heat strain and heat stroke, explains the seriousness of these potentially fatal conditions, how to recognize symptoms, and what to do if someone is exhibiting those symptoms.

Working in Hot Environments: A Health and Safety Guide is the sixteenth addition to this compact, easy-to-follow CCOHS Pocket Guide series. It serves as a handy resource for health and safety committee members and representatives as well as supervisors, managers, engineers and other health and safety professionals.

Heat exposure can be controlled. The guide emphasizes the importance of developing and implementing safe work practices to prevent or minimize workers exposure to extreme heat, and keep them healthy and safe.

A French-language edition of Working in Hot Environments: A Health and Safety Guide will be published later this year.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Eleanor Irwin, Manager – Marketing, Sales and Communications
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS)
905-572-2981, Ext. 4408 Email: eleanori@ccohs.ca

Please visit www.ccohs-cchst.gc.ca

About CCOHS
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), formed in 1978, is a Canadian federal government agency based in Hamilton, Ontario. CCOHS provides Canadians with unbiased, relevant information and advice that supports responsible decision-making and promotes safe and healthy working environments. CCOHS makes a wide range of occupational health and safety information readily available, in language that is appropriate for all users, from the general public to the health and safety professional. Internationally, the Centre is renowned as an innovative, authoritative occupational health and safety resource. CCOHS partners and collaborates with agencies and organizations from Canada and around the world to improve the quality and quantity of resources and programs, as well as expand the breadth of usage of occupational health information to many different segments of society.