Digitizing Heat Risk to Close the Outdoor Health & Safety Gap

The construction foreman collapses before lunch. The park ranger finishes her shift with a splitting headache and confusion. The hiker’s legs stop responding halfway up a moderate trail. All in conditions we’d call safe: 85, maybe 90 degrees.

These aren’t outliers—they’re symptoms of something larger: the Outdoor Health & Safety Gap. The world is going outside to work and play more than ever, but the tools to keep us safe haven’t caught up.

We Think We Understand Heat. We Don’t.

Temperature tells you a number. Heat Index adds humidity so you know if shade feels comfortable. Neither tells you what your body is actually experiencing when you’re moving, working, and exposed to sun and wind.

We’ve built entire safety systems around convenience metrics like temperature and Heat Index—useful for comfort, but dangerously misleading for physiology. This disconnect between what we think we know and what our bodies are actually enduring is a dangerous gap.

That said, the measurement needed to bridge this gap already exists.

The Real Measure: Wet Bulb Globe Temperature

Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) captures the complete story: air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed. WBGT doesn’t tell you how hot it feels—it tells you how hard your body must work to survive.

That’s why OSHA’s proposed federal rule uses it. That’s why California, Washington, Minnesota, and Oregon already enforce regulations based on it. That’s why the military has relied on it since the 1950s to keep soldiers active in extreme conditions.

But here’s the problem: despite how important WBGT is as an indicator for heat safety, it has been widely inaccessible for most people.

You either deploy specialized equipment—black globe thermometers, wet bulb sensors, hourly manual readings, constant recalibration—or you check National Weather Service forecasts for select U.S. locations that give you raw numbers without meaning.

That manual lag can mean a missed warning. A worker stays on site an hour too long. A coach misses the threshold for safe play. A search-and-rescue team pushes a training exercise into the danger zone.

A youth soccer coach in Houston can’t afford heat-monitoring equipment. A construction supervisor in Phoenix doesn’t know what “WBGT 86°F” means for her crew. A trail runner in Atlanta has no access to WBGT at all.

So they make decisions blind. They check weather apps, see a manageable temperature, and proceed. They implement generic precautions that feel reasonable—and hope their judgment is right. Sometimes it isn’t.

From Measurement to Meaning

GOES Health set out to change this. Not by inventing new science, but by making existing science accessible, and importantly, actionable.

Digital WBGT takes what was once confined to military bases and industrial sites and makes it available to anyone, anywhere on Earth. No equipment to buy. No specialized training required. Just accurate heat-risk assessment delivered in real time, with forecasts extending 48 hours—and soon eight days—ahead.

This technology matters because accuracy matters. GOES combines established gold-standard estimation methods with cutting-edge research to calculate WBGT for any location globally. From sports fields to construction sites to backcountry trails, this is the first global system that translates environmental data into human health action.

But the real innovation isn’t simply computational—it’s translational. GOES doesn’t just tell you the WBGT. It tells you what that number means in a given context, and what to do about it.

The platform categorizes conditions into risk levels aligned with regulatory guidelines, each with specific behavioral guidance. That soccer coach doesn’t get “WBGT 86°F.” He gets clear direction: current conditions require frequent water breaks and reduced practice intensity. The construction supervisor doesn’t interpret atmospheric data—she understands her crew needs condition-appropriate, modified work-rest cycles.

It turns a number into a decision. A measurement into protection. That’s what transformation looks like.

Democratizing Heat Intelligence

This is what closing the Outdoor Health & Safety Gap looks like: professional-grade environmental intelligence, coupled with actionable guidance—democratized.

The same quality of heat-risk assessment that protects soldiers and professional athletes, now accessible to youth sports programs and small construction companies. The same measurement standard California uses for worker protection, available to a trail runner planning her weekend route.

The transformation scales across every context where heat threatens human health. Outdoor employers reduce heat-illness incidents and meet intensifying regulatory requirements. Athletic programs make evidence-based decisions about training. Critical-event managers identify vulnerable populations during heat waves. Outdoor enthusiasts plan activities with the same intelligence available to elite athletes.

Climate change is making heat more dangerous everywhere. GOES is making heat intelligence accessible everywhere.

The Broader Mission

At GOES Health, we believe the outdoors shouldn’t be dangerous by default. It should be understandable. Measurable. Manageable.

The tools exist to quantify nature’s risks and translate them into safe behavior. Our mission is ensuring everyone has access to those tools—not just those with institutional resources or specialized knowledge.

Deploying Digital WBGT is a critical step in that mission—a meaningful component of our broader Outdoor Health & Safety Platform. Because heat isn’t the only environmental risk people face outdoors. Lightning, air quality, altitude, and cold exposure all present quantifiable dangers that most people navigate with insufficient intelligence. Each represents a gap between outdoor participation and preparedness.

We’re building the platform that closes those gaps—one risk at a time. One tool at a time.

The Future of Outdoor Safety

The future of outdoor safety is about access to insight and information. It’s about giving a municipal parks employee the same environmental intelligence available to a military training officer. It’s about ensuring a weekend hiker has the same heat-risk assessment as a professional expedition guide. It’s about being confident that we’re prepared to be safe outside.

We’re building the platform that closes these gaps—one risk, one environment, one human decision at a time.

GOES Health is already in active collaboration with outdoor industry leaders who see heat not as a seasonal inconvenience, but as a year-round safety imperative.

If you’re an organization committed to protecting people outdoors—whether employees, athletes, or guests—let’s connect. Together, we can make outdoor health intelligence a standard, not a privilege.

Closing the Outdoor Health & Safety Gap isn’t just about technology. It’s about impact. The more people and partners who adopt this intelligence, the more lives we protect.

Dr. Colin Little

Chief Medical Officer, GOES Health

Emergency Physician | Wilderness Medicine Specialist