Transcript:

Roxana Chicas came to the U.S. as a child from El Salvador. And she remembers hearing family and friends who worked in construction or on farms talk about laboring outside in the hot sun.

Chicas: “How sometimes they’d go and touch a piece of metal that they needed to move, and it was really, really hot. How they would feel dizzy sometimes at work.”

Today, Chicas is a nurse scientist at Emory University. And she’s determined to keep outdoor workers – many of whom are immigrants to the U.S. – safe from extreme heat.

Farm and construction workers are far more likely to die of heat-related illnesses than other workers.

But Chicas is part of a team that’s testing a patch that could help protect them.

It’s worn on a person’s skin and has sensors to send their heart rate, skin temperature, and other real-time data to a smartphone. The goal is to send an alert when they’re at risk of overheating.

Chicas: “To get them to stop working, to take a break, drink some water, and cool down.”

As climate change causes more extreme heat in many parts of the U.S., protecting outdoor workers will become even more critical.

Chicas: “The idea is to stop people from dying from heat, which is a preventable death.”

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media