Heat may get the headlines, but a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine found that cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather. That study corroborates a U.S. study that found cold kills more than double the number of Americans as heat does.
The fact is, low temperatures can cause more problems for the body’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems that high temps. So it should come as no surprise that prolonged exposure to cold injured 380 workers in the U.S in 2014. But just because weather patterns are unpredictable and cold may be constant doesn’t mean worker illnesses, injuries and fatalities must be as well. Coupled with the right controls and proper personal protective equipment (PPE), this number can be reduced to a familiar wintertime temperature: zero.