Physiological monitoring of occupational heat strain

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Hexoskin (Carré Technologies Inc.) is the world leader in smart clothing for the monitoring of physiologicresponse of general daily living. While it is also used for the monitoring of individuals in occupational settings,its use as a functional tool for the monitoring of heat stress in workers remains to be developed. Occupationalheat stress represents a growing threat to worker health and safety as it can lead to potentially dangerousincreases in core temperature. Provincial labor laws mandate that employers take every precaution reasonablefor the protection of the worker. This includes developing hot environment policies and procedures to monitorand protect workers. While the physiological monitoring of workers exposed to hot environments has beenencouraged as a safe and simple method to ensure that workers will not incur heat-related injuries, its use hasbeen very limited. Until recently the technologies capable of providing multi-parameter measurements of thephysiologic responses of individuals were limited and unreliable. However, the Hexoskin wearable bodymetrics vest is an engineering sensation as it brings smart clothing to a new level of sophistication that permitsreliable and accurate multi-parameter monitoring of an individual's physiologic responses. However, workmust be done to expand the applicability of the Hexoskin body metrics vest as a dependable recording tool forthe monitoring of heat stress in workers. To achieve this objective, we will evaluate the responsiveness of thesystem sensors and their integrated recording as a reliable indicator of thermal strain under industry-relevantwork conditions. Further, we will assess the heat transfer capacity of the vest in our world's only whole-bodycalorimeter in order to provide gold-standard data from which to assess the thermal insulative effects of thevest. By improving the functionality of its vest, Hexoskin is poised to benefit economically by capturing a newand emerging market share. The incorporation of monitoring of workers will also help industry reducework-related injuries such as those associated with heat exposure increasing productivity, reducing absenteeismand lost days to due illness as well as reduce the burden on our health care system.