RHRI Small Grant Scheme: The impact of climate change on the aged care workforce in rural communities: An exploration of the impact of extreme heat and hay fever on the delivery of homecare services at BaptistCare

The aim of this research is to explore the weather-related labour productivity impacts of climate change on the BaptistCare workforce, who deliver services to older people living in their homes in the Wagga Wagga region. By understanding these impacts and how to manage them, we will support people to age in place in rural communities.
The need for this project emerged during a symposium about the implications of climate change on the regional workforce. Here evidence of the impact of increasingly extreme weather events on people’s ability to carry out their work was a catalyst for BaptistCare to consider the impacts of heat and hay fever on their workforce. This exploratory investigation brings together the BaptistCare management team and care workers, with a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Aged Care, Rural Health, Mental Health, Geospatial Science, Human Resources and Marketing.

The anticipated outcomes of this research are:

1) To understand the impact of extreme heat and hay fever on the physical and mental health of aged careworkers and consequently the delivery of home care services

2) To document BaptistCare’s approach to managing weather-related labour productivity in an aged care organisation,

3) To develop a model of preparing for and responding to extreme heat and hay fever which can be trialled and implemented in other BaptistCare locations and other organisations.