Evaluation of workplaces heat stress for bakers in kashan city

With respect to the heat stress-induced complications in environment with high temperature such as bakeries, we designed a study to detect heat stress on bakeries in Kashan city. For this descriptive study, 175 randomly selected bakers in 100 bakeries in Kashan were enrolled. To determine environment heat stress, we used WBGT instrument and WBGT indices. The measures were taken by standard ISO 7234 method in the hottest hours of summer. Variants such as baking technique, type of bakery, type of ventilation and bakery space were evaluated. Of 100 bakeries, 51 used machinery technique and 49 had traditional technique bakeries. Of 175 bakers, 107 (61.1%) worked in heat stress situation. The rate of this stress was 54.2% and 45.8% in machinery and traditional bakeries, respectively. Exposed to heat in traditional bakeries were 3.3 fold more than machinery bakeries. We are worried about heat stress in bakeries of Kashan. This situation was more pronounced in traditional bakeries. We suggest changing traditional technique to modern bakeries.