Effect of ergonomics rehabilitation intervention program to improve the health status of manual material handling women beedi workers of West Bengal

Abstract

In the informal sector, beedi manufacturing industry has been classified as unorganized, falling under the small scale and cottage industries sector. Beedi working activity is largely carried out at home, which workers a large number of male as well as female also. Beedi rolling activity has became an industrial in generating supplementary income among the poor families in the west Bengal. The unorganized sector of developing countries use very little mechanical aids and therefore MMH works are common. Manual material handling is associated with severe pain, discomfort felt, injuries as well as loss in efficiency and production for employers and their families, with accompanying societal economic losses. Ciriello et al., 2008 [2] had shown the study is most frequent and rich cause of compensable workplace injuries loss. The main objective of this study was to investigate the MSDs problems due to the job postures they have adopted. The postures were analyzed using Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA).Modified Nordic Questionnaire of Musculoskeletal disorders was used to get information about the feeling of discomfort felt in different body parts. The results showed that they had musculoskeletal disorders as a result of dementia they worked on. This study indicates that the ergonomics rehabilitation intervention training has a favorable impact on the health and productivity out comes.