Team Project Summaries from 2004-7

1. Investigating Janitorial Chemical Hazards: "So Safe You Can Eat It"  
2. Overhead Drilling in the Construction Trades
3. Summertime Blues: Heat Stress in a Fabric-coating Factory
4. Heavenly Beds, Backbreaking Work: Hotel Room Cleaners
5. Day Laborers in Los Angeles  Survey of Hazards
6. Bricklayer Exposure to Silica Dust
7. Heat Illness among California Farmworkers
8. Chinese Restaurant Worker Hazards
9. New York Public Employees Federation (PEF) Violence Prevention Project
10. Health and Safety at Work: Immigrant Retail Workers in Brooklyn

Summertime Blues: Heat Stress in a Fabric-coating Factory in Connecticut

Sponsors and Mentors

• Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program (YOEMP)
• UNITE Local Union 151 Note: The union is now referred to a UNITE HERE: UNITE (formerly the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) merged in 2004 to form the new union UNITE HERE.  

The Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program (YOEMP) provided occupational medicine services to a local plastics-coating manufacturer. Based on discussions with the workers at the plant, heat stress was identified as a concern, and the project was carried out by a first year medical student at Yale. The project goals were to gain a better understanding of how heat affects worker health and work performance, and to develop recommendations to reduce the hazard.

The intern, a first year Yale medical student, developed and administered a workplace heat stress assessment with the help of the local union president. She surveyed over two-thirds of the workforce, covering all three shifts. Temperature measurements were also taken. The final report, which contained recommendations to develop a heat stress monitoring, training, and acclimatization program, was shared with workers, management, and YOEMP. As with some of the other OHIP projects, the intern developed worker survey and other materials in both English and Spanish.

After the summer, the intern noted, "This introduction confirmed my interest in occupational health. I was greatly inspired by the need to treat and document health injuries and strengthen worker protections. One aspect I find particularly interesting about occupational health is the need to work within social and political frameworks to address health concerns."