Construction workers hit hard by heat-related illness
Although they compose only six percent of the total U.S. workforce, construction workers accounted for 36 percent of all occupational heat‐related deaths from 1992 to 2016 – and climate change may have something to do with it. That’s one of the key findings from new research from the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR).
Heat is a severe hazard for construction workers around the world and may be worsening as a result of climate change. The authors analyzed heat‐ related deaths in the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries to examine this type of death in relation to time, region, and temperature and to explore a possible association with climate change.