Abstract
Increasing temperature and climate warming impacts are aggravating the vulnerability of workers to occupational heat stress. Adaptation and social protection strategies have become crucial to enhance workers’ health, safety, productive capacity and social lives. However, the effective implementation of work-related heat stress adaptation mechanisms appears to be receiving little attention. This study assessed the barriers to occupational heat stress adaptation and social protection strategies of mining workers in Ghana. Based on a mixed methods approach, focus group discussions and questionnaires were used to elicit data from 320 mining workers. Workers’ adaptation strategies (water intake, wearing loose and light-coloured clothing, participating in training programmes, taking regular breaks, use of mechanical equipment, use of cooling systems and housing designs) varied significantly across the type of mining activity (p < .001). Workers’ social protection measures were adequate. The disparities in workers’ social protection measures significantly differed across the type of mining activity (p < .001). Barriers of workers to the implementation of relevant adaptation strategies (inadequate knowledge of coping and adaptive behaviour, lack of regular training on adaptation measures, lack of specific heat-related policy regulations, lack of management commitment and the lack of access to innovative technology and equipment) also differed across the type of mining activity (p < .001). Adaptation policy options and recommendations centred on overcoming the barriers that constrain the adaptive capacity of workers and employers have the potential to reduce workers’ vulnerability to occupational heat stress.
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Acknowledgements
This manuscript is part of a PhD research project at Edith Cowan University. The authors would like to recognise the interest and informed consent shown by the mining companies and respondents during the study. We are also grateful to the Edith Cowan University Higher Degree by Research Scholarship for the provision of a PhD scholarship and the Human Research Ethics Committee of ECU (Project Number 17487) for ethical authorisation.
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Nunfam, V.F., Adusei-Asante, K., Frimpong, K. et al. Barriers to occupational heat stress risk adaptation of mining workers in Ghana. Int J Biometeorol 64, 1085–1101 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-01882-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-01882-4