Measuring the socio-economic cost of heat stress

$21 and $2.22 billion - two figures that illustrate the impact of heat stress on individual workers and the greater economy respectively.

Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Natalia Borzino shared these two sets of numbers as part of her findings into the socioeconomic impact of heat stress at a media roundtable for external page Project HeatSafe on 18 March.

The project, led by the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, investigates the impact of rising temperatures on the health, productivity, well-being and fertility of workers in tropical climates. Dr Borzino lead and presented her findings from two studies at the event.

In her first study, she examined how construction workers and their employers perceived heat stress, and the impact on workers' productivity, during the hottest months of the year (April to August) in Singapore. She estimated that workers suffered a median income loss of S$21 per worker per day, roughly 24% of the daily median salary of these workers. She also found that while a majority of employers do not feel such losses were a problem, they saw value and importance in educating workers about the impact of occupational heat strain on their health, well-being, and work performance.

In her second study, she looked at the macroeconomic impact of heat stress across all sectors of industries in Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. Through data gathered and analysed, her findings projected an economy-wide output loss of S$2.22 billion due to heat stress on labour productivity in Singapore in 2035.

Dr Borzino was interviewed in various Singapore media channels on her study and recommendations, including Channel 8 (in Mandarin) and live on Channel NewsAsia.