Risco à saúde por exposição ao calor excessivo : revisão integrativa de literatura

Abstract

For family health care practices, the assessment of territories plays a fundamental role in the work. An important aspect of the territory is the housing conditions, which are also evidenced by home care activities. From the detection of potential problems related to excessive heat in the home environment of care-dependent people, especially those at the extremes of age, the question arose as to what information about preventive measures and health promotion related to excessive heat is available in the literature. Objectives: To synthesize information on excessive heat and health through an integrative literature review, gather information compatible with educational material on the subject for the general public and develop a prototype of this material. Methodology: integrative literature review based on: search in two databases for terms related to health promotion or primary prevention, thermal comfort or excessive heat, and extremes of age or housing; thematic content analysis; and content synthesis. Results: After reading the titles, abstracts and full texts and applying exclusion criteria, 74 articles were selected and content synthesis was elaborated. Varied sub- themes were found, which allowed the composition of the content synthesis according to different levels of the scale of social determinants of health. Discussion: the analysed content could be applied to the current context for the subject in Brazil. In addition, the results allowed the elaboration of an educational material prototype and suggest that the theme can be approached as a health promotion issue with the embracing of different areas of knowledge and of the production, institutional, and service sectors. Conclusion: The issue of excessive heat and health should be addressed as a matter of health prevention and promotion via intersectoral approaches. New studies can be developed through interdisciplinary collaboration.