Extreme Heat and Severe Workplace Injuries in the Northeast United States

Extreme heat occurrences have been occurring more frequently and pose substantial health risks to workers across the United States. This study examines the relationship of workplace injuries to the occurrence of extreme heat, specifically the Heat Index, for locations across the Northeastern United States. Workplace severe injury reports were obtained from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for a time period from January 2015 to October 2023. Hourly surface weather data during the summer months (June, July, August) was obtained from the National Center for Environmental Information to examine atmospheric conditions on the day prior to and day of severe workplace injury incidents in the vicinity (i.e., within a 25-mile radius) of 12 metropolitan areas. These 12 areas were referred to as injury zones. The New York City, NY – Newark, NJ injury zone had both the greatest number of injuries (599) during the nine summers and the greatest population (14,661,040) of any injury zone; equating to the smallest population adjusted number of injuries (4.1 injuries / 100k people). The Harrisburg, PA injury zone had the largest population adjusted number of injuries (21.3 injuries / 100k people). The Philadelphia, PA -Wilmington, DE injury zone had the warmest mean heat index on injury days (25.9 °C) and the Albany, NY injury zone had the coolest heat index on injury days (20.6 °C). An important result of this research was that the number of severe workplace injuries per day increased as the heat index increased on either the day prior to injuries or the day of injuries, regardless of time frame or location examined.