Agricultural workers are exposed to heat stress due to spending significant amount of time outdoors. Risk information from mobile apps is more readily available for timely advice on risk management that is crucial in preventing severe acute illnesses and deaths, but its reliability is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the OSHA-NIOSH Heat Safety Tool mobile app in providing accurate risk information to prevent heat-related illnesses among agricultural workers in eastern North Carolina. Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) indices were datalogged at two agricultural sites using heat stress monitors from April-August 2019 and were assigned to risk levels (minimal, low, moderate, high, extreme) by workload (light, moderate, heavy, very heavy) based on the ACGIH® Threshold Limit Values (TLVs®). Hourly heat index (HI) and its corresponding risk level were obtained using the app. Hourly HI-based risk level assignments were time-matched to their corresponding WBGT-based risk level assignments (682 pairs) and analyzed using cross-tabulation by determining the percentage of hourly WBGT-based risk level assignments ("gold standard") with the same hourly HI-based risk level assignments under different workloads, with a higher percentage indicating higher app reliability. Results showed that the app correctly identified 60-100% of minimal risk conditions, depending on workload type, but its reliability decreased as the heat stress risk condition and workload became more severe. The app identified the majority of low risk conditions for a moderate workload (74%) and moderate risk conditions for a light workload (94%) only, indicating limited use in these specific conditions, while the app identified 0% of either the high risk or extreme risk conditions at any workload type. It is concluded that the performance of the OSHA-NIOSH app in assessing occupational risk to heat stress is not protective of workers particularly for heavy and very heavy workloads, and that the use of the app for the assessment of occupational heat stress risk in agricultural settings is not recommended.

中文翻译：

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OSHA-NIOSH热安全工具应用程序和WBGT监视器之间的比较，以评估农业中的热应激风险。

由于在户外花费大量时间，农业工人面临热应激。来自移动应用程序的风险信息更容易获得，以便及时提供有关风险管理的建议，这对于预防严重的急性疾病和死亡至关重要，但其可靠性尚不清楚。这项研究的目的是确定OSHA-NIOSH热安全工具移动应用程序在提供准确的风险信息以预防北卡罗来纳州东部农业工人中与热有关的疾病方面的可靠性。从2019年4月至8月，使用热应力监测仪在两个农业地点记录了湿球温度（WBGT）指数，并根据工作量（轻，中，重，极，高，低）将其分配到风险水平（最低，低，中，高，极端）重载）基于ACGIH®阈值限制值（TLVs®）。使用该应用可以获取每小时的热量指数（HI）及其相应的风险水平。将基于每小时HI的风险级别分配与它们相应的基于WBGT的风险级别分配（682对）进行时间匹配，并通过交叉表分析，通过确定每小时基于WBGT的风险级别分配（“黄金标准”）的百分比进行交叉分析在不同的工作负载下，每小时进行相同的基于HI的风险级别分配，百分比越高表示应用程序的可靠性越高。结果表明，该应用程序根据工作负载类型正确识别了60-100％的最小风险条件，但是随着热应激风险条件和工作负载变得越来越严重，其可靠性下降。该应用仅识别了针对中等工作量（74％）的大多数低风险状况和仅针对轻度工作量（94％）的中等风险状况，表示在这些特定条件下使用受限，而该应用则在任何工作负载类型下识别出0％的高风险或极端风险条件。结论是，OSHA-NIOSH应用程序在评估热应激的职业风险方面的性能并不能为工人提供保护，尤其是对于工作量繁重的工作人员，并且该应用程序用于评估农业环境中的职业热应激风险不推荐。