Impact of climate change on occupational health and safety: A review of methodological approaches

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The working population is exposed daily to unavoidable climatic conditions due to their occupational settings. Effects of the weather such as rain, heat, and air pollution may increase the risk of diseases, injuries, accidents, and even death during labor. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to summarize the impacts of climate change on workers’ health, safety and performance, identifying the risks, affected workplaces and the range of methodological approaches used to assess this problem. METHODS: A thorough systematic mapping was conducted in seven scientific international databases: Emerald, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Scielo, Scopus, SpringerLink, and Web of Science. Three research questions guided the extraction process resulting in 170 articles regarding the impacts of climate change on occupational health and safety. RESULTS: We found an accentuated trend in observational studies applying primary and secondary data collection. Many studies focused on the association between rising temperatures and occupational hazards, mainly in outdoor work settings such as agriculture. The variation of temperature was the most investigated impact of climate change. CONCLUSIONS: We established a knowledge base on how to explore the impacts of climate change on workers’ well-being and health. Researchers and policymakers benefit from this review, which explores the suitable methods found in the literature and highlights the most recurring risks and their consequences to occupational health and safety.