Safety and health risks for workers exposed to cold thermal environments: A frozen food processing industry perspective

BACKGROUND: Environmental temperatures in the fresh food industry vary from 0 degrees C to 10 degrees C, and go below -20 degrees C for the frozen food industry, representing risk for the health and safety of workers involved. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this work was to evaluate the cold thermal stress risks for workers working in a frozen food industry. METHODS: A total of 27 acclimatized workers (13 male and 14 female) participated in a study which was conducted during 11 working days. The thermal sensation questionnaire and the cold work health questionnaire (CWHQ) were applied to all participants. Additionally, 4 workers were chosen to be fully monitored with a thermometer telemetry capsule for measuring the intra-abdominal temperature and 8 skin temperature sensors. RESULTS: The lowest recorded hand temperature was 14.09 degrees C, lowest forehead 18.55 degrees C, mean skin temperature had variations of 1.10 to 3.20 degrees C along the working period. Highest and most frequent fluctuations were found in the hand and forehead skin temperatures, small changes were found in mean skin temperature. CONCLUSIONS: Answers to the CWHQ increase concern on clinical forms of "a frigore", and in two cases the mean body temperature decreased below 35.0 degrees C, which is defined in the current literature as a mild form of hypothermia.