Framing Future of Work Considerations through Climate and Built Environment Assessment of Volunteer Work Practices in the United States Equine Assisted Services

Abstract

The foundation of healthy workplace design is an understanding of work practices. Volunteers comprise the majority of the workforce in care centers using horses to address human health issues. Documentation is lacking on protections for worker well-being in equestrian microenvironments which are known to have the potential for dust exposures. Climate acts as a master variable in equestrian facility design and ventilation usage to address dust and temperature concerns. Using climate as an independent variable, our objective was to characterize space usage, safety, environmental control, and organizational practices through a national survey of equine assisted programs. We found that more fully enclosed indoor arena spaces were in cold/very cold and mixed-humid climates (p = 0.0114). Annually more volunteers (p = 0.0073) work in these two climate groups averaging 100 volunteers per location. A total of 34% of all facilities, regardless of climate, do not use mechanical ventilation systems (e.g., fans). As volunteer worker time in the arena increased, time in the barn microenvironment tended to decrease (p = 0.0538). We identified facility designs, ventilation usage, and worker arrangements to refine the scalability of future air contaminant monitoring and to provide frameworks for education, workplace design, and prevention of exposure to dust.

The Triple-E Model: Advancing Equestrian Research with Perspectives from One Health

“…The second is the need to account for environmental factors in a model, as the current models do not provide the opportunity to include these variables seamlessly. We know that equestrian environments vary by location in how equestrians engage with equine [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. We postulate that environmental covariates need to be identified in future equestrian research.…”

Lower Emotional Exhaustion among Employees Is Associated with Intentional Incorporation of Animals into Residential Care Settings

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“…And, Tumlin et al [24] investigate equine-assisted programs that address human health issues and rely on a predominantly volunteer workforce (not often represented in OSH) with non-traditional schedules, to assess protections for worker well-being in environments characterized in part by dust exposure. The authors identify factors needed to refine the scalability of future air contaminant monitoring and provide frameworks for education, workplace design, and prevention of exposure to dust.…”