ABSTRACT
Work in many regions of the Earth involves exposure to high altitude. Workers may be native highlanders-those who were born and have lived their whole lives in an elevated region-or lowlanders, ordinarily resident at or close to sea level. It is increasingly necessary for work at altitude to be performed by lowlanders, who may either commute or remain there for extended periods. This is due to a combination of increasing manpower requirements as industries expand and the limited availability of
requisite skills within the indigenous population. Mining activities in particular are moving higher and higher as economically important deposits are exhausted at lower altitudes. High altitude poses a variety of occupational challenges, although those faced by lowlanders have historically been somewhat neglected (West, 2014).
