Exposure to Extreme Temperatures
Introduction
Thermal stress is the feeling of discomfort that is experienced when staying in a certain environment requires excessive efforts from the mechanisms available to the body to maintain the internal temperature, while the exchange of water and other substances in the body takes place.
The impacts of climate change include rising temperatures. High temperatures cause an increase in deaths from heat stress. In Latin America alone, it is estimated that there was a 160% increase in deaths related to heat stress in the period 2000-2021.[1].
Concepts
Hygrothermal comfort
We can define thermal comfort as the feeling of well-being that is experienced when staying in a specific environment does not require excessive efforts from the mechanisms available to the body to maintain the internal temperature at 37 °C.
Whether we are thermally comfortable depends on three aspects: environmental conditions, physical activity and the type of clothing we use.
The environment is capable of influencing our feeling of comfort through four variables: air temperature, air humidity, the temperature of the walls and objects that surround us and the speed of the air.
Each of these variables can be modified naturally or artificially without altering any of the rest.
Discomfort
The main condition for a situation to be comfortable is that it satisfies the thermal balance equation, or what is the same, it is necessary that the physiological mechanisms of thermoregulation are capable of bringing the organism to a situation of thermal balance between heat gain and heat elimination.
When this situation is not possible and the environment is hot or cold, we will find ourselves in an uncomfortable or uncomfortable situation, which is far from being a situation of thermal stress.
thermal stress
It is the cause of the various pathological effects that occur when excessive heat accumulates (heat stress) or excessive heat is eliminated (cold stress) in the human body.