New York City occupations at risk of heat stress: integrating O*NET and BLS data for occupational insights

Abstract

Extreme heat poses a growing threat to occupational health and safety in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan region with projections indicating substantial increases in heat wave events and heat-related mortality in the coming decades. We, therefore, aimed to identify NYC occupations at greatest heat stress risk using publicly available data. Two databases were mapped and merged to compile available occupational information for job titles in the NYC metropolitan region. Two certified industrial hygienists identified variables within these databases to include in a heat stress risk model and weighted these accordingly. Inter-rater reliability and agreement statistics were calculated. The final model was applied to the merged database to identify the scope of the NYC-region worker population potentially impacted by heat stress. The final merged database included 717 Standard Occupational Classification codes with data for 407 categories from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), as well as employment and wage data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Regarding the risk model, the raters' variable selection and weighting were generally consistent and entailed the inclusion of 11 variables. Upon applying the final risk model to the merged database, 178 880 total workers were found to constitute the top 25 at-risk job titles with total employment n > 500, with more than half of this identified workforce classified as landscaping and groundskeeping workers (n = 51 790) and construction laborers (n = 46 390). Our analysis successfully identified NYC occupations at greatest risk of heat stress, achieving our aim and providing a foundation for targeted mitigation strategies. The success of any extreme heat mitigation policies will depend on effective enforcement and outreach to impacted workers.

Keywords: extreme heat; hazard identification; heat-related illness; heat-related injury; heat-related mortality; occupational health equity; thermal stress; vulnerable workers.