Tag Archives: stress

UN agencies warn of rising heat stress risks for workers worldwide

Posted on by
Reply

The new joint report, Climate change and workplace heat stress, underscores the mounting risks as climate change fuels longer, more extreme, and more frequent heatwaves.

Stressing that workers in agriculture, construction, and fisheries are already suffering the impacts of dangerous temperatures, the report points out that vulnerable groups in developing countries – including children, older adults, and low-income communities – face increasing dangers.

“Heat stress is already harming the health and livelihoods of billions of workers, especially in the most vulnerable communities,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Care.

“This new guidance offers practical, evidence-based solutions to protect lives, reduce inequality, and build more resilient workforces in a warming world”, he added.

Drawing on five decades of research, the report highlights how rising temperatures are hitting both health and productivity.

WMO confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record, at 1.55 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, and with daytime highs above 40 °C becoming commonplace – and in some areas, even exceeding 50 °C. 

“Occupational heat stress has become a global societal challenge, which is no longer confined to countries located close to the equator – as highlighted by the recent heatwave in Europe,” said Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary-General. “Protection of workers from extreme heat is not just a health imperative but an economic necessity.”

Alarming findings

The report details how extreme heat is reshaping the world of work. It finds that worker productivity drops by 2 to 3 per cent for every degree above 20°C.

The health consequences are wide-ranging, including heatstroke, dehydration, kidney dysfunction, and neurological disorders. Overall, nearly half of the world’s population is now experiencing negative effects from high temperatures.

Path forward

Calling for urgent occupational heat action plans tailored to industries and regions, WHO and WMO guidance includes several recommendations:

  • Develop targeted occupational heat-health policies based on local weather and workforce vulnerabilities.
  • Prioritize protections for middle-aged and older workers, those with chronic health conditions, and individuals with lower physical fitness.
  • Train health professionals, employers, and workers to recognize and treat heat stress, which is often misdiagnosed.
  • Involve workers, unions, and local authorities in shaping heat-health strategies.
  • Promote affordable, sustainable, and scalable solutions, alongside innovation and new technologies.
  • Strengthen research and monitoring to ensure measures remain effective.

The guidance builds on International Labour Organization (ILO) findings that more than 2.4 billion workers are exposed to excessive heat globally, resulting in over 22.85 million occupational injuries each year.

‘Critical milestone’

“This report represents a critical milestone in our collective response to the growing threat of extreme heat in the world of work,” said Joaquim Pintado Nunes, ILO Chief of Occupational Safety and Health and the Working Environment.

“Aligned with the ILO’s mandate to promote safe and healthy working environments as a fundamental right, it offers robust, evidence-based guidance to help governments, employers and workers confront the escalating risks of climate change.”

A call to action

Both UN agencies stress that addressing heat stress is central to safeguarding lives, livelihoods, and economies. The guidance supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), urging decisive action to protect vulnerable workers, reduce poverty, and promote sustainable growth.

Urgent and coordinated action is no longer optional – it is essential, the report says.

Did the pandemic change our personalities? Increased neuroticism among young adults seen: Study

Posted on by
Reply

Despite a long-standing hypothesis that personality traits are relatively impervious to environmental pressures, the COVID-19 pandemic may have altered the trajectory of personality across the United States, especially in younger adults, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Angelina Sutin of Florida State University College of Medicine, and colleagues.

Previous studies have generally found no associations between collective stressful events—such as earthquakes and hurricanes—and personality change. However, the coronavirus pandemic has affected the entire globe and nearly every aspect of life.

In the new study, the researchers used longitudinal assessments of personality from 7,109 people enrolled in the online Understanding America Study. They compared five-factor model personality traits—neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness—between pre-pandemic measurements (May 2014 – February 2020) and assessments early (March – December 2020) or later (2021-2022) in the pandemic. A total of 18,623 assessments, or a mean of 2.62 per participant, were analyzed. Participants were 41.2% male and ranged in age from 18 to 109.

A crowd of people at a pedestrian crossing./CREDIT:Brian Merrill, Pixabay, CC0(https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Consistent with other studies, there were relatively few changes between pre-pandemic and 2020 personality traits, with only a small decline in neuroticism. However, there were declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness when 2021-2022 data was compared to pre-pandemic personality. The changes were about one-tenth of a standard deviation, which is equivalent to about one decade of normative personality change. The changes were moderated by age, with younger adults showing disrupted maturity in the form of increased neuroticism and decreased agreeableness and conscientiousness, and the oldest group of adults showing no statistically significant changes in traits.

The authors conclude that if these changes are enduring, it suggests that population-wide stressful events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality, especially in younger adults.

The authors add: “There was limited personality change early in the pandemic but striking changes starting in 2021. Of most note, the personality of young adults changed the most, with marked increases in neuroticism and declines in agreeableness and conscientiousness. That is, younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible.”

Stressful life make people focus more on their romantic partner’s negative behavior

Posted on by
Reply

Stressful life circumstances can affect how married couples interact, but can they affect how partners see each other? A person experiencing stress is more likely to notice their spouse’s negative behavior than positive, according to a new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Prior research has focused on how stress influences behavior, but this study suggests that stress could affect what actions partners notice in the first place. The negative actions being monitored included a spouse breaking a promise, showing anger or impatience, or criticizing their partner.

“We found that individuals who reported experiencing more stressful life events outside of their relationship, such as problems at work, were especially likely to notice if their partner behaved in an inconsiderate manner,” says lead author Dr. Lisa Neff, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers asked 79 heterosexual newlywed couples to complete a short survey each night for 10 days, in which they documented both their own and their partner’s behavior. Before beginning this portion of the study, participants completed a questionnaire in which they shared details on stressful events in their life.

Stress

Studying newlyweds drives home the significance of the results, Dr. Neff notes, because couples are especially likely to focus on each other’s positive behavior and overlook negative actions during the “honeymoon” period.

“For many people, the past few years have been difficult – and the stress of the pandemic continues to linger,” says Dr. Neff. “If stress focuses individuals’ attention toward their partner’s more inconsiderate behaviors, this is likely to take a toll on the relationship.”

Researchers noted a single stressful day was not enough to make someone zero in on their partner’s negative behavior, but a longer accumulation of stressful life circumstances could cause this shift in focus. The findings also suggest that those under stress were not any less likely to notice their partner’s positive behavior, but they were more likely to notice inconsiderate actions.

While it’s possible that being aware of the effects of stress could allow couples to correct their behavior and limit harm to the relationship, Dr. Neff notes that this will remain speculation until it is studied further. She also says that future research would do well to expand this study beyond the honeymoon phase.

“One direction would be to examine if the harmful effects of stress might be even stronger among couples no longer in the newlywed phase of their relationships,” says Dr. Neff, “but the fact that we found these effects in a sample of newlyweds speaks to how impactful the effects of stress can be.”

Washable, wearable sensors made from ‘PECOTEX’ styled into t-shirts and face masks to monitor body activities

Posted on by
Reply

Wearable sensors styled into t-shirts and face masks

Imperial researchers have embedded new low-cost sensors that monitor breathing, heart rate, and ammonia into t-shirts and face masks.

Potential applications range from monitoring exercise, sleep, and stress to diagnosing and monitoring disease through breath and vital signs.

Spun from a new Imperial-developed cotton-based conductive thread called PECOTEX, the sensors cost little to manufacture. Just $0.15 produces a metre of thread to seamlessly integrate more than ten sensors into clothing, and PECOTEX is compatible with industry-standard computerised embroidery machines.

First author of the research Fahad Alshabouna, PhD candidate at Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering, said: “The flexible medium of clothing means our sensors have a wide range of applications. They’re also relatively easy to produce which means we could scale up manufacturing and usher in a new generation of wearables in clothing.”

The research team embroidered the sensors into a face mask to monitor breathing, a t-shirt to monitor heart activity, and textiles to monitor gases like ammonia, a component of the breath that can be used to track liver and kidney function. The ammonia sensors were developed to test whether gas sensors could also be manufactured using embroidery.

Fahad added: “We demonstrated applications in monitoring cardiac activity and breathing, and sensing gases. Future potential applications include diagnosing and monitoring disease and treatment, monitoring the body during exercise, sleep, and stress, and use in batteries, heaters, anti-static clothing.”

The research is published today in Materials Today. 

Mask

Seamless sensors 

Wearable sensors, like those on smartwatches, let us continuously monitor our health and wellbeing non-invasively. Until now, however, there has been a lack of suitable conductive threads, which explains why wearable sensors seamlessly integrated into in clothing aren’t yet widely available.

Enter PECOTEX. Developed and spun into sensors by Imperial researchers, the material is machine washable, and is less breakable and more electrically conductive than commercially available silver-based conductive threads, meaning more layers can be added for to create complex types of sensor.[1]

Lead author Dr Firat Guder, also of the Department of Bioengineering, said: “PECOTEX is high-performing, strong, and adaptable to different needs. It’s readily scalable, meaning we can produce large volumes inexpensively using both domestic and industrial computerised embroidery machines.

“Our research opens up exciting possibilities for wearable sensors in everyday clothing. By monitoring breathing, heart rate, and gases, they can already be seamlessly integrated, and might even be able to help diagnose and monitor treatments of disease in the future.”

Next, the researchers will explore new application areas like energy storage, energy harvesting and biochemical sensing, as well as finding partners for commercialisation.

This study was funded by the Saudi Ministry of Education, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, part of the UKRI), Cytiva, Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the US Army.

Imperial College London press release.