OSHA has announced the release of a new version of its Heat Safety App for Apple devices to help spotlight its annual campaign to prevent heat illness in outdoor workers. OSHA’s updated app features full-screen color alerts, improved navigation and accessibility options that instantly alert users working in high-risk zones due to heat and humidity and provide precautions to prevent heat-related illness.
Every year, thousands of workers suffer from heat-related illnesses, resulting in death for some, even though illnesses and deaths from heat exposure are totally preventable. Making OSHA’s Heat Safety Tool available to workers on their smartphones is just one of many ways that employers can save lives and prevent heat-related illnesses.
OSHA’s free heat safety mobile app, available in English and Spanish for both Android and Apple devices, enables workers and supervisors to monitor the heat index at their worksites. By combining both temperature and humidity into a single value, the heat index is a better measure than air temperature alone for estimating the risk to workers from environmental heat sources.
The OSHA Training Center’s Heat Illness Prevention webpage features a variety of free heat-related illness resources, including training materials, a supervisor’s daily checklist and worker fact sheets on heat illness prevention.