**Abstract**

The trouble for every person is to competently interact with his/her environmental variables. India being a tropical country will have a huge impact on individuals' health as a result of this global warming. Workers who are working in a hot environment pose an extra risk as they are exposed to additional heat in the workplace. The diversity in Indian climatic systems necessitates scientific study in different regions of the country. Methods to quantify the heat strain vary in different countries & different professional groups. Most of the previous studies on assessing the health effects have been conducted on simulation settings rather than actual field settings. Research in occupational heat stress is much needed to find out the health impacts and suitable intervention to protect workers health which subsequently reduces the morbidity.

**Keywords:** climate change, occupational heat stress, heat strain, prevention, adaptive measures

## **1. Introduction**

The current prediction on climate change says that there will be an increase in the ambient temperature of about 0.5 to 1 degree C by 2030 which may pose a significant risk to the people [1, 2]. India being a tropical country will have a huge impact on individuals' health as a result of this global warming [2]. Workers who are working in a hot environment pose an extra risk as they are exposed to additional heat in the workplace [3]. Occupational heat stress is the net heat load experienced by the worker which includes the combined contributions of metabolic heat produced during the time of work, environmental factors, and clothing [4]. Continuous exposure to excessive heat may result in heat-related illness which ranges from heat rash to heat stroke which life is threatening. Apart from this the workers are at increased risk of accidents at workplaces, decreased productivity which all can cause an increase in morbidity and decrease in community economy. Various factors play a major role in determining the heat stress which includes ambient temperature, humidity, air movement, source of heat, duration of exposure, fluid loss/intake, etc. [5]. Indoor and outdoor workers are at risk of heat stress. Occupational heat stress will cause potential negative health with wellbeing outcome. In this chapter, the basics of occupational heat stress and heat strain, physiology thermoregulation, vulnerable population group, health impacts, Current status of research in occupational heat stress, prevention, control and adaptive measures will be discussed. To achieve this, a technical scan of various research papers pertaining to heat stress that were published in the last ten years were considered and the key points are included in this chapter.
