Dr. Jo Anne Balanay (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Sinan Sousan (Co-Investigator, Dept. of Public Health) were selected to receive a $26,834 subaward from the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) for a project titled, “Development of a WBGT-based Heat Stress Assessment Mobile Application”. This proposed project was submitted in response to the AIHA Request for Proposal – Heat Stress Mobile App. This project will be conducted in partnership with Dualboot Partners, a full-service product design and software engineering company based in North Carolina. The goal of the project is to create a mobile app in iOS and Android platforms that 1) automatically calculates the current and forecasted wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index by pulling weather data for a specific zip code; 2) provides the heat stress risk level based on the calculated WBGT and workload input; 3) recommends heat stress prevention measures based on heat stress risk levels; and 4) provides information on workload description, signs/ symptoms and first aid measures for specific heat-related illnesses (HRIs), and risk factors for HRIs. The proposed mobile app will be built up based on an existing WBGT web-based app prototype, which is an ECU-owned intellectual property that was developed by Drs. Balanay and Sousan, with the support of the ECU Office of Licensing and Commercialization, as a product of their NSF-funded Innovation Corps (i-CorpsTM) App Development Training in Fall 2020.
