Posts Tagged: heat illness

Summer safety: Tips to avoid foodborne and heat illnesses

Happy summer! It's time to get the barbecue grilling and the pool party started. To keep your summer healthy and fun, UC ANR offers some important safety tips.

Check the internal temperature of meat cooked on the barbecue with a thermometer to make sure it has reached a safe temperature - 145 degrees for roasts, 160 degrees for ground meats. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Food safety

Food poisoning is a serious health threat in the United States, especially during the hot summer months. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 6 Americans suffer from a foodborne illness each year, resulting in thousands of hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. 

Both the CDC and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggest four key rules to follow to stay food safe:

• Clean: Clean kitchen surfaces, utensils, and hands with soap and water while preparing food. Wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly under running water.
• Separate: Separate raw meats from other foods by using different cutting boards. And be sure to keep raw meat, poultry, seafood and eggs away from other items in your refrigerator.
• Cook: Cook foods to the right temperature; be sure to check internal temperature by using a food thermometer.
• Chill: Chill raw and prepared foods promptly.

Here are some additional tips from the USDA. Be sure to check out the CDC's comprehensive food safety website, which also has materials in both Spanish and English. For food safety tips in real time, follow USDA Food Safety on Twitter.

Summer also means more outside grilling, which can pose unique food safety concerns. Before firing up the barbecue, check out these five easy tips from UC Davis.

Don't let potato salad or other foods sit out for more than two hours; no more than one hour if the ambient temperature is 90 degrees or above. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Handling food safety on the road 

Before you take off on a road trip, camping adventure or boating excursion, don't forget to consider food safety. You'll need to plan ahead and invest in a good cooler.

Remember, warns the USDA, don't let food sit out for more than one hour in temperatures above 90 degrees F. And discard any food left out more than two hours; after only one hour in temperatures above 90 degrees F.

If there are any doubts about how long the food was out, it is best to throw it out!

Get more food safety tips for traveling from the USDA.

Avoid heat illness

“Summer can be a time for fun and relaxation, but in warm climates, we need to stay aware of the signs of heat illness and help keep our family members and co-workers safe,” says Brian Oatman, director of Risk & Safety Services at UC ANR.

“UC ANR provides comprehensive resources on our website, but it's designed around California requirements for workplace safety.” But, Oatman notes, much of the information applies.

“The training and basic guidance – drink water, take a rest when you are feeling any symptoms and having a shaded area available – are useful for anyone at any time.”

To increase your awareness of heat illness symptoms – and to learn more about prevention – Oatman suggests a few resources.

“Our Heat Illness Prevention page has many resources, including links for training, heat illness prevention plans, and links to other sites. One of the external sites for heat illness that I recommend is the Cal/OSHA site, which spells out the basic requirements for heat illness prevention in the workplace. It's also available in Spanish." 

For those on the go, Oatman also recommends the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) mobile heat safety app.

UC programs provide heat illness prevention training

Record-breaking heat led to 12 farmworker deaths in 2005, bringing the issue of heat-related illness to the forefront for California labor activists and legislators. New laws enacted since then call for employee and supervisor training, fresh water at work sights, access to adequate shade for rest and recovery periods and written documentation on site that provides information about the regulations.

As the hottest August on record comes to a close, the next essential task has become educating California’s diverse population of outdoor workers and their employers about the heat illness prevention rules, according to an article on HealthyCal.org.

At the heart of the educational efforts are “Train the Trainer” workshops in which representatives from UC Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program along with UCLA's Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, and UC Davis’ Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety train representatives from schools, advocacy organizations, cultural centers, churches and health centers who in turn reached out to thousands of outdoor workers in their respective communities, the article said.

Related to this story, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has a Heat Illness Prevention page on its website with the following articles:

• Ten key points about heat stress
• UC gives tips for coping with heat stress
• Heat illness symptoms and first aid
• How heat affects the body
• Preventing heat-related illness among agricultural workers (pdf)

Visitors can also download bilingual (Spanish and English) heat illness prevention handouts from the website.

In 2011, of 753 heat enforcement inspections, 76 percent of employers were found to be compliant.

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