From May 9 to 10, various La Isla Network team members attended the International Conference on Occupational Heat Stress in Doha, Qatar.
In attendance at the conference were CEO and founder Jason Glaser, and research partners Andreas Flouris, Jason Lee, Rajen Naidoo, and Vidhya Venugopal. Each team member presented relevant findings from their research on heat stress.
The conference was co-organized by the Ministry of Labour of Qatar and the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO). The stated mission of the conference is to “promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences on the impact of heat stress on workers, present and future mitigation measures, as well as challenges and opportunities for the design and implementation of heat stress mitigation approaches.”
CEO and founder Jason Glaser presented on La Isla Network’s breadth of research experience on occupational heat stress in Central America.
“The ILO did an excellent job bringing together government officials, policy experts, medical research doctors, and multilateral organizations and consultancies — both globally and in the region,” he said.
Aside from promoting the exchange of knowledge, the conference also presented itself as an opportunity for stakeholders to take concrete steps in protecting workers. “We look forward to concrete and actionable next steps from the Qatari government. We offer our services to them and eagerly await them,” said Glaser. “We also had encouraging conversations with other actors, who seem fully committed to protecting their workforce in an integrated and long-term fashion.”
Andreas Flouris presented the field research that he and his team from the FAME Lab did in Qatar during the summer of 2019. This research was funded by the ILO and provided the evidence needed to strengthen Qatar’s legislation for mitigating occupational heat stress.
Throughout the conference, Flouris met with occupational health and safety professionals from the Gulf region and beyond to discuss the findings and explain how the evidence informed the legislation in Qatar.
Vidhya Venugopal presented the findings of the heat studies conducted by the India Heat team in India among the formal and informal workers. She presented the various heat-related health outcomes and aggravating risks factors that exacerbates heat-related injuries among workers.
She campaigned for urgent need for interventions and learning from other researchers and adapting it to local conditions rather than reinventing the wheel. Being a certified Industrial Hygienist, she also insisted in preventing workers from getting exposed to other workplace hazards including ergonomic hazards as total workplace health must be the goal for improved occupational health.
Researchers Lee and Naidoo presented key findings from their research on occupational heat stress in Southeast Asia and Africa, respectively. For the conference agenda and research presentations, please go to the conference website.
La Isla Network is the leading global occupational health research organization and consultancy dedicated to protecting workers in a changing climate. We are generating, supporting, and executing evidence-driven solutions to protect workers from heat and other occupationally acquired injuries and illnesses, especially those driven by climate change. In the process, we work closely with employers and workers to understand the specific contexts of their industry to adopt the gold standard of worker protections to the reality of their site-specific situation. LIN works collaboratively with decision makers and choice architects to improve working conditions, support worker health, and create tailored policies and procedures to ensure occupational protections are being adequately and effectively implemented at all levels. To learn more about La Isla Network and donate to our cause go to https://laislanetwork.org/.
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