Improving workers’ health in Central America
Sugarcane workers in Central America are exposed to heat. Photo: Ed Kashi.
ENBEL partner gets 8 million USD in new funding from the US Government to improve workers’ health and safety in the face of climate change in Central America.
Interview by Miriam Stackpole Dahl, CICERO
La Isla Network (LIN) has been awarded 8 million USD from the U.S. Department of Labor International Labor Affairs Bureau to promote safe and healthy workplaces in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
“The award is a welcome recognition that heat stress among workers is a challenge that needs to be addressed”, said LIN CEO Jason Glaser. As the climate warms, heavy labourers at particular risk of health impacts from climate change, specifically from acute kidney injury due to heat stroke, and kidney injury over the harvest leading to chronic disease.
The initiative, “Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection in a Changing Climate” (PREP4Change) will over the next four and a half years address urgent health risks, including occupational heat stress driven by climate change, facing workers in the sugar sector in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and the textile sector in El Salvador. The initiative grew out of the Belmont Forum funded project PREP that is part of the ENBEL network of climate and health research projects.
“We could not have reached this important next step of our work for workers’ health and safety without the research networks we are part of, including PREP and ENBEL”, said Glaser.
Research partners from PREP, including the University of Gothenburg, University of Birmingham, and University of Texas as well as local universities in the region and partners such as World Vision, Fair Labor Association and others will be part of the new initiative.
“Research knowledge on health impacts of climate change coming out of relevant projects in the ENBEL network, including the EU project HEATSHIELD and the Belmont Forum projects HEATCOST and CHAMNHA, will definitely be of use for this initiative”, Glaser said, emphasizing the importance of the coordination, energy and meeting points created by the ENBEL project and network.
The PREP4 Change initiative will include establishment of centers of excellence for occupation health best-practice and systems for improved access to prevention, care and remediation as well as an early warning system to protect against further epidemics and occupational illnesses.
“The aim of PREP4Change is to develop a system that works to protect workers health, and that can be scaled up in the next phase”, said Glaser.