After the catastrophic bush fire season last summer in Australia, it is no surprise that 2020 is on track to be one of the warmest years on record.
On Thursday 3rd of December at 7pm SMA held a live webinar and Q&A with expert panel members Associate Professor Ollie Jay, Associate Professor Carolyn Broderick and Dr James Smallcombe. 113 people sat down to hear the panel discuss recent developments in Australia’s Guidance for Safe Sport in Extreme Heat Conditions. We saw people join not only from Australia, but from across the globe, including The United States of America, Norway, The United Kingdom, Singapore, Mexico, Germany and New Zealand.
Australia has broken heat records this year, a country that deals with such extreme weather conditions in summer calls for robust extreme heat policies to minimise risk to participants.
The panel covered a wide range of issues regarding heat stress. This included signs and development of heat stroke in sport, the tool of the Traffic Light Method to ensure appropriate measures are taken upon heat stress, as well as the five-point heat stress scale to identify the severity of heat stress cases in participants.
The panel answered 66 questions from the audience and were able to go in further detail about the scientific literature of evidence-based heat stress mitigation and community heat policies.
The new policy will be hosted in a mobile app where the user will insert start time, date, clothes they are wearing and the level of intensity of the sport they are playing. The user will receive recommendations for their specific sport and location.
This webinar was exceptionally timely for our audience as the weather begins to warm up and summer sports begin for the season.