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In recent years, due to global climate change and the mostly hot-and-humid weather in Taiwan, the challenge of environmental heat to human perspiration system has increased, leading to a series of heat-related diseases as influenced by the heat island effect. In order to effectively protect outdoor workers, the government agency promulgated "Guidelines for the Prevention of Thermal Hazards for Workers Laboring Outdoors under High Ambient Temperature" (Guidelines) in 2019 to provide administrative guidance to business units for effectively implementing the provisions of Article 324-6 of the "Rules on Occupational Safety and Sanitation Facilities." However, the Guidelines was not written specifically for individual industries, so when applied to various industries, it should be examined in order to realize the effectiveness of the Guidelines in providing protection for the outdoor workers.
The investigation period of this research was from May 2022 to February 2023. A cross-sectional research design was adopted, focusing on the construction-related industries, including road construction and repairs, building of collective housing, building of art and cultural/public facilities, and small commercial office construction projects. The worker groups involved in hazardous heat exposure were interviewed, using a paper questionnaire that inquires the four major management strategies of heat stress management as listed in the Guidelines in Appendix III "Table of Hazard Prevention and Management Measures Corresponding to Different Thermal Hazard Risk Levels." These strategies included labor operation management and labor health management, safety and health education and training, and emergency medical system. The answers from the workers were analyzed to provide itemized views or opinions of the interviewed groups.
A total of 331 questionnaires were collected in the study. The results show that the respondents in the construction industry were highly satisfied with the strategies associated with facility preparation and management of thermal hazard prevention management, but their views on the benefits from administrative management was conservative. The employers could improve the effectiveness of heat hazard prevention based on the results of the study, for examples, to, increasing their surveillance of the workers, rotating workers between different tasks of varying exposure potential and metabolic consumption, referencing the experiences of various countries, and finally communication systematically to understand the needs of workers.
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