Heat Stress's Impact on Agricultural Worker's Health, Productivity, and its Effective Prevention Measures: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Growing temperature due to climate change is one of the biggest threats in the current situation for humankind after Covid-19. Heat exposure is challenging for certain occupations like agriculture because of the combined effect of the external thermal environment and heat generated by inner organs due to heavy muscular work. A potential part of the world population is agriculture, commonly affected by heat-related illness and productivity loss due to heat exposure. We use our review as a springboard to expand the negative influence of heat stress on the agricultural workforce's health. We used CrossRef, PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar, Scopus, Science Direct databases, and some other reverent websites to revise various research priorities related to heat stress associated with epidemiology, loss of productivity, and some effective prevention measures. We have properly reviewed selected top 35 scientific priorities associated with heat stress-related epidemiological studies on more than 5 million agricultural workers to elaborate the probability of heat-related illness in the farming sector. We divided the examined data into six categories for the effective analysis of chosen studies: author, topic of study, target population sample condition of study heat exposure recognized health issue, specific study outcome, etc. The result of the survey reveals that heat stress-related disorder among farmers is in increasing order. The increasing order of impact of climate change in the form of heat stress in the agricultural sector tremendously influences the agricultural worker's health, productivity, and livelihood. Most of earlier research priorities concluded that heat stress could effectively reduce by low-cost measures, proper work-rest Schedule, hydration, heat stress awareness, and prevention training but needs adequate implementation. Further comparative assessment of physiological parameters of agricultural workers in heat stress conditions of different geographical locations is essential for future research to develop a Policy for sustainable livelihood in the agricultural sector.