Reducing the risk of heat-related illness in western agricultural workers; physio

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然热相关疾病（HRI）的主要环境和个人风险因素是已知的，并且加利福尼亚州已经颁布了保护工人的法规，但死亡和大量HRI继续发生，特别是在农业领域。仍然存在许多不确定因素，这些因素使工人面临人力资源感染的风险，雇主利用降低风险战略保护工人的能力也不确定。职业研究中缺少对HRI影响因素的考虑，包括在不同农业环境中工作的代谢热负荷，以及影响大多数移民工人工作实践/行为的社会文化因素。没有对这些方面的透彻理解，降低农业人力资源效率的有效策略就会打折扣。这项多学科的努力汇集了来自医学、流行病学、公共卫生、生理学、人类学和社区外展/教育的研究人员，他们在解决农业人口的人力资源调查方面具有独特的优势。我们的目标是获得内部的新数据

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although the major environmental and personal risk factors for heat-related illness (HRI) are known and California regulations have been enacted to protect workers, deaths and significant numbers of HRI continue to occur, particularly in agriculture. There continue to be many uncertainties surrounding factors that place workers at risk for HRI and employers' ability to utilize risk reduction strategies for worker protection. Missing from occupational studies on factors contributing to HRI are considerations of the metabolic heat load from working in diverse agricultural environments, and the socio-cultural factors affecting the mostly immigrant workers' work practices/behaviors. Without thorough understanding of these aspects, effective strategies to reduce agricultural HRI are diminished. This multidisciplinary effort brings together investigators from medicine, epidemiology, public health, physiology, anthropology and community outreach/education who are uniquely positioned to address HRI in agricultural populations. Our goal is to obtain novel data on internal body temperature as it relates to crop type and geography, external heat and internal metabolic loading, including accounting for work type and personal factors. Our innovative approach will obtain critical information on knowledge, work practices and social-cultural issues that impact a worker's decisions with regard to HRI prevention. By combining these approaches, we aim to develop protective strategies to be translated and broadcast through outreach and education programs. The specific aims of this proposal are: (1) Increase understanding of the physiological responses to increased environmental heat and physical exertion among farmworkers through the analyses of personal characteristics, monitors and sensors, and use the protocols developed to generate and validate risk models. 2) Examine socio-cultural perspectives of HRI using focus groups and key interviews, and identify barriers to adoption of prevention strategies and potential solutions acceptable to all parties. (3) Assess normal practices of farmworkers that impact HRI risk using epidemiological techniques. (4) Increase awareness of HRI as a credible personal risk to farmworkers, and translate project findings into HRI prevention strategies.