INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEAT STRESS INTERVENTIONS IN SINGAPORE'S CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Abstract

With warmer weather projections and global warming, workplace heat exposure is presenting a growing challenge to Singapore’s construction industry, impacting workers’ health and safety. The provision of appropriate personal cooling equipment is recognized as an effective measure to combat heat stress. However, cooling devices are relatively new in Singapore and are most widely implemented in Hong Kong and Japan Industries. The study presents an overview of the heat stress trends due to climate change, examines the risk factors involved across participants, different literature reviews done on heat stress globally and current interventions implemented against heat stress.

The current study aims to evaluate the usability of Coolbit headgear that is associated with the success of its application across Japans’ industries from schools, sport arenas to their outdoor workers. Temperatures shall be taken from participants who shall wear the headgear and work as per usual and compared to the temperatures when they were working without the headgear. This is done to determine the factuality of the properties of the headgear. Additionally, a self-administered questionnaire focusing on 10 subjective attributes of the cooling effect, ergonomic design and overall usability of the headgear shall be examined with a Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) method of analysis shall be adopted.

A structural equation model estimated by analysis of moment structures was constructed to evaluate the usability of the headgear, as influenced by the cooling effect and ergonomic design. Findings conclude that the path coefficient of cooling effect and ergonomic design to the worker’s perceived usability of the Coolbit Headgears are 0.784 and 0.491 respectively. It is established that there is a positive correlation of wearing the headgear with 96.7% of participants temperature dropping by an average of 0.483 ℃ across all participants. Further analysis across different sectors in Singapore is required for a better conclusion of the overall optimization of Coolbit Headgears.