NEWS On 24 October, Doctoral student Rebecca Tapper had her mid seminar within occupational health, and presented her research project ArctiHealth. Tapper is a Doctoral student at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine and the Arctic Graduate School at Umeå University.
Rebecca Tapper was employed as a Doctoral student at Umeå University in 2022, and is halfway through her research. This was noticed with a mid seminar where Tapper presented her research project ArctiHealth so far. The presentation was followed by questions from a reviewboard of researchers within the field.
Rebecca Tapper presents her research project ArctiHealth.
Image Monica BörlinThe purpose of the project ArctiHealth is to widen the knowledge of risk management, health and experiences of cold exposure in different work environments. Tapper has done two sub-studies within her project and plan to do two more. The first sub-study was a scoping review of previous studies regarding occupational health in cold environments. The preliminary results show that the studies mainly revolved around technical risk assessment, but there seems to be a lack of knowledge about implementation, leading to inadequate protection for workers. Research on sex differences in cold exposure and risk management is also limited.
In her second sub-study, Tapper has focused more on exposure to cold in actual occupational settings and collected data from three different occupational groups: Pre-school personnel, power grid workers, and park and maintenance workers. Through surveys, interviews and measurements, Tapper has examined their physical exposure to cold, as well as their experiences of being cold at work. Preliminary results show differences between the occupational groups, where the power grid workers are exposed to cold the most. When it comes to feeling cold, many people state that they do, most of them women, but individual factors such as gender, age and health do not seem to have any connection with those facts. However, several report that a lack of protective equipment and clothing is a reason why they feel cold at work.
It is important that we know and understand the challenges we are facing
The research project will continue during the following two years. Two more sub-studies are planned where interviews with both employees and managers will be used to examine the views on cold risk management and possible improvements. Tapper highlights the need for increased knowledge since there are identified knowledge gaps. Organisations are also asking for more guidance, especially as northern enterprises are expanding, and extreme weather conditions are increasing.
– It is important that we know and understand the challenges we are facing. Issues regarding cold is often treated like common knowledge, but it is not. We need to include research in the discussion for a sustainable future work health and living, Tapper concludes.
