Abstract
Rapid urbanization has intensified the demand for new buildings, exposing outdoor construction workers to heightened physical strain and reduced productivity, particularly in hot-humid urban environments. Here we quantify heat stress and associated productivity losses among 101 workers across 10 construction sites in Taipei and New Taipei City. We find that in labor-intensive sectors like construction, heat stress imposes a substantial economic burden, with productivity losses ranging from 29.0% to 41.3%, depending on the task type.
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Data availability
The full raw data of workers used in this study cannot be made publicly available to protect privacy of individuals and the participating private industry partners, in accordance with the study protocol approved by the Ethics Review Board of Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Access to the dataset is subject to controlled access due to these legal restrictions. Qualified researchers can request access to the data by contacting the corresponding author or the Research Center for Environmental Changes at Academia Sinica (email: sclung@rcec.sinica.edu.tw). Requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to ensure compliance with guidelines from participating private industry and data protection standards. Responses to access requests can be expected within 4 to 6 weeks.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge financial support from the Institute of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health, Ministry of Labor, Executive Yuan, Taiwan, under project nos. 1050004 and 1060047. We would like to thank the development team of AS-LUNG and the subjects who participated in the paper. This investigation was made possible by grant no. T42 OH008416 from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) through Harvard–NIOSH Education and Research Center (ERC) grant awarded to B.A. The content of the paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of funding agencies.
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This study was conceived by B.A. and S.-C.C.L. Field work was conducted by C.-H.C., S.-C.H., L.J.C., H.H.C. and C.Y.C. Data were analyzed by B.A. and Y.A. The paper was drafted by B.A., A.M. and S.-C.C.L. All authors contributed to the discussion and finalization of the paper.
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Nature Cities thanks Steffen Lohrey, Jianjun Xiang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Minute-by-minute measurements of heat index for construction workers in Taiwan stratified by the job workload: Light (N = 44), Medium (N = 18), and Heavy (N = 39).
The heat index was classified according to the National Weather Service as: ‘Caution’ (27–32 °C), where fatigue may occur with prolonged exposure; ‘Extreme Caution’ (33–40 °C), where heat cramps, exhaustion, or heat stroke become possible; ‘Danger’ (41–51 °C), where heat exhaustion is likely and heat stroke is possible; and ‘Extreme Danger’ ( ≥ 52 °C), where heat stroke is highly likely. We used the Barcelona Institute for Global Health color-coding system to visually represent these classifications: green (safe), yellow (caution), orange (extreme caution), red (danger), purple (extreme danger), and black (beyond human threshold). Conditions of construction workers were pooled across all shifts.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Descriptive graphs of hot-humid conditions summarized by wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) for construction workers in Taiwan (N = 101).
The graphs show a) hourly overall averages in boxplots, b) an hourly summary of measures for each individual, in grey, and the overall average, in solid line, and c) a minute-by-minute scatter plot for all workers, and stratified by workload: d) light (N = 44), e) medium (N = 18) and f) heavy (N = 39). Dashed horizontal red line at 35 °C is the theorized upper limit of human adaptability from Shewood and Huber (2010). Temperature and relative humidity were measured from personalized bags carried by each worker. Solar radiation and wind speed were measured from a fixed monitoring station typically situated on the same floor and in an unshaded place. Liljegren et al (2008) equations were used to compute WBGT from temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation. Boxplots display the median (horizontal line), interquartile range (IQR; box bounds represent the 25th and 75th percentiles), and whiskers (minimum and maximum values within 1.5 × IQR from the quartiles). Outliers in boxplots are plotted as individual points and defined as values falling more than 1.5 × IQR below the first quartile or above the third quartile.
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Supplementary Information
Supplementary Tables 1–5 and methods (site description and subjects).
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Alahmad, B., Lung, SC.C., Makar, A. et al. Heat stress and productivity losses in urban construction workforces. Nat Cities 2, 703–707 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00283-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00283-1
