Monitoring and Managing Heat Stress Risk for Summer Sports

Abstract

This thesis objective was to build on the knowledge around the accurate and reliable onsite measurement of thermal environmental parameters where physical activity is being undertaken and the implementation of heat stress management strategies. A comparison of the environmental measurements was obtained from a commonly used heat stress monitor with those from an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) compliant reference unit. The findings suggest that the portable heat stress monitor misclassifies wet bulb globe temperature categories by at least one category 66% of the time. This is due in part to the overestimation of ambient temperature, natural wet bulb temperature, and black globe temperature. The building and development of an ISO-compliant environmental measuring unit to measure the reliable and accurate onsite thermal conditions at outdoor venues were outlined. Next, the thesis focuses on deploying the environmental measurement unit to measure the thermal environment courtside at a major summer sporting event to implement an extreme heat policy and compares the environmental data obtained with those provided by the local meteorological weather station. The findings indicate that the meteorological weather station underestimates in situ heat stress, potentially due to microclimates generated by the built infrastructure surrounding the courts and the differences in weather station location. Finally, meteorological data used for application within the Sports Medicine Australia extreme heat policy was compared to measurements taken onsite across various playing surfaces. The findings suggest that the disparity between the various sporting venues and the meteorological site can result in misclassification of the heat stress risk. Together, the results support the importance of measuring local environmental conditions and that the equipment measurements must be reliable and accurate to ensure heat stress risk is evaluated and managed appropriately.