Effects of Ambient Temperature on Construction Workers Performance and Safety

This research work studied the effects of ambient temperature on construction workers' performance and safety in UAE using a quantitative research approach and a deductive reasoning technique. A sample of 120 volunteering workers (age range of 22–35 years), from a large construction company with a workforce of 4000 workers, participated in this study. The performance of 60 of the participants was measured using the Deary-Liewald paradigm on simple, choice response time tasks during different periods of the day in Summer (July and August of 2019) and Winter (December of 2019 and January of 2020). Then the same was repeated by another 60 participants in Winter and performance results were compared as a way to record the effects of ambient temperature on the workers' performance. Detailed accident statistics were also collected for one year for the whole company where accident severity was determined using the Abbreviated Injury Severity Scale (AIS). Results showed that the performance of participants on both tasks was significantly lower in Summer due mainly to high ambient temperature as compared to Winter knowing that participants did similar tasks all over the year. Results also indicated that accidents showed a clear trend of increase during the hot months of Summer. Recommendations based on the results are given in the end.