Creating a safe environment for employees is part of ACRA’s Code of Ethics, and that includes ensuring safety while in the field. Working outdoors, especially in the summer, brings the risk of heat-related illness. Prevention of heat stress is an important part of field safety, and firms should provide training and resources to employees on what heat stress is, how it affects their health and safety, and how it can be prevented.

ACRA’s Health & Safety Committee has put together a number of resources related to recognizing and preventing heat-related illness for firms and their employees to reference. These are listed below and are also always available on the Health & Safety page.

OSHA

The OSHA Outdoor/Indoor Heat Environments page provides a tremendous amount of resources for recognizing and preventing heat-related illnesses.

CDC/NIOSH

The CDC/NIOSH page on heat stress provides links to quick cards, posters, general information, and statistics in an accessible format.

Apps for Field Use

A few useful phone apps are below, including the NIOSH and OSHA Heat Stress, water consumption tracker, and UV Index. The NIOSH/OSHA apps are the same and have a “Precautions” button as well as great pages that provide hourly heat index predictions, heat illness symptoms and treatments, break schedule, and more.