by Outdoor workers face the highest risk from extreme heat, which can be fatal in a matter of minutes. Therefore, researchers have begun experimenting with wearable sensors that can monitor workers’ vital signs and warn them if they start to show early signs of heat stroke.
In Pierson, Florida, where temperatures can soar into the high 90s before noon, workers on a fern farm have been fitted with experimental biopatches as part of a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The patches measure workers’ vital signs and skin hydration, and include a gyroscope to monitor continuous movement.
The data is being collected by scientists from Emory University and Georgia Tech, which is then fed into an artificial intelligence algorithm. The ultimate goal is for the AI to predict when a worker might suffer from heat illness and send alerts to their phone before that happens. For now, however, the researchers are still analyzing the data, which they plan to publish in studies next year.
“There’s this idea that it’s hot working outside. That’s just the way it is,” said Roxana Chicas, a nurse researcher at Emory who oversaw biopatch data collection. “I think, with research, creativity, we can find ways to protect the workers while they work in the field.”
An average of 34 workers died from heat exposure each year from 1992 to 2022, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Farm workers are 35 times more likely to die from it than other workers. But until now heat protections for workers have been left up to the states. In California, for example, employers must provide training, water and shade if the temperature exceeds 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but many states have no such rules.
For their research, Chicas and her team partnered with the Farmworker Association of Florida to recruit participants. They aimed to include 100 workers with the biopatches for the four-year study, but said they were surprised by how many people wanted to participate, so they ended up with 166 people.
Participating workers come in before dawn to receive their patches and have their vitals measured. Then he goes to the fields before the hottest and deadliest hours of the day.
“I hope the research will help improve working conditions,” said Juan Perez, one of the study’s participants, in Spanish. He also said he has been working in fern fields for 20 years and would like more breaks and better pay.
Other farm workers also said they hope the research shows how hard their jobs can be.
Antonia Hernandez, a study participant who lives in Pierson, said she often worries about the heat risk she and her daughter face; they both work in the fern fields.
“If you don’t have a family, you only worry about your house, your rent,” Hernandez said in Spanish. “But if you have children, well, the truth is you’re under a lot of pressure, you have to work.”
Chicas said she sees the wear and tear of the heat on some workers’ faces.
“They look a lot older, some look a lot older than they really are, because it takes a toll on their bodies and their health,” she said.
Chicas has been researching ways to protect farm workers from the heat for almost a decade. In projects since 2015, she has fitted workers with volumetric sensors to measure skin temperature, skin hydration, blood oxygen levels and vital signs. The current study is the first time she has experimented with a light biopatch; it is like a large band-aid and is placed in the center of the chest.
Overall, wearable sensors have become much less cumbersome, allowing some to become more widely used. Although the biosensors Chicas is testing with are not yet publicly available, a system sold by the SlateSafety brand (and sponsored by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is available to employers. It involves wristbands that send readings of a worker’s core body temperature to a monitoring system. If the temperature gets too high, an employer may notify the worker to take a break.
A similar technology, known as the Heat Illness Prevention System, is used in the military. Developed by the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, it involves a chest strap that each soldier or Marine in a company can wear to measure their core body temperature, skin temperature and gait stability. Leaders can then see the location and heat risk of service members.
“The system is programmed to sense when a person is approaching higher than appropriate levels of heat exposure,” said Emma Atkinson, a biomedical researcher at the institute, in a February news release, adding: ” our system enables us to alert you to heat. illness before it happens and being able to take action before someone falls.”
Unlike those systems, the one being developed by Chicas and her team would send notifications directly to a worker, rather than within a larger system controlled by an employer. They are still finishing collecting data from the farm workers, then the next step for the algorithm is to start identifying patterns that indicate a risk of heat illness.
“For workers who work outside, they have to spend time outside, otherwise our food is not picked. Our ferns are not cut. Our houses are not built,” Chicas said. “And they have to have something to protect them better as the threat of climate change increases.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
