Evaluation of Health Consequences of Air Pollution Induced by Beam Rolling Mills Factory (Iran)

Abstract

Abstract The increases in air pollution over the metropolitan cities are a threat to human health and environment. An attempt has been made to evaluate the health consequences of indoor air pollution induced by Beam Rolling Mills Factory at Ahwaz (Iran). A questionnaire was prepared to obtain information on health of 481 workers, out of which 200 each were selected from exposed and non-exposed category by stratified randomized method. Fisher exact test and chi-square test were used to calculate the values. The study concludes that more than 80% of the workers have high exposure risk to diseases. Analysis of the health impacts reveals that exposed workers are more prone to various diseases as compared to the non-exposed workers. It is also observed that exposure to air pollutants might be the causative factor for various diseases among the smokers but also nonsmoking workers. The analysis also reveals that there is higher relative risk in occupational fatigue and cardio-vascular disease. Further, the study found that percentage of workers having various diseases is much higher in the indoor environment as compared to the outdoor environment