A cross sectional study to determine the health profile of brick kiln workers

Abstract

Background: Occupational hazards involving the respiratory system, musculoskeletal system, skin and eyes are very commonly seen in the workers involved in the brick kiln industry. This study was designed to assess health profile of the brick kiln workers and to discuss sociodemographic profile affecting their health.Methods: This was a cross sectional study. 420 workers falling into the eligibility criteria, were selected from the 65 brick kiln factories in the study area. Multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to select the brick kiln factories and the participants of the study. The responses given by the participants were entered in Microsoft Excel 2010 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Chi Square test was used to determine the association between the morbidities and sociodemographic variables.Results: Mean age of the workers was 35.34±10.96 years. 96.7% of the respondents were suffering from some or the other complaints, while 3.3% were not suffering from any complaints. Addiction was seen in 37.9% of the participants. Musculoskeletal complaints were the most common complaints followed by respiratory and skin complaints.Conclusions: Health of workers is affected due to conditions they work under. The older age group had more respiratory, dermatological and ophthalmic complaints. The group of workers employed as bigaaris as well as those who were working for more than 10 years had more respiratory and dermatological complaints.