Health status of industrial workforce in district Lahore Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Industrial labour is an important population section as it is actively engaged in the industry of the nation. Labour work force and health have bi-directional relationship, as hazardous work can produce negative effect on health in terms of injury and disease. Since sickness and absenteeism is an indicator to measure the health status of Labour workforce as well as an important indicator to measure the functioning of the industrial establishments; therefore, it has been focused to describe the distribution of their health status in this project. Methods & Materials: Study Design: Descriptive epidemiological cross sectional study Settings: Nawaz Sharif Social Security Hospital, Lahore Study Design: Descriptive epidemiological cross sectional study. Settings: Nawaz Sharif Social Security Hospital, Lahore Methodology: Industrial labour (patients) presented at Nawaz Sharif social Security Hospital, Lahore to seek treatment were included in this study. Sample Size (87,278): A total number of 87,278 patients were included in this project. It was a time based study for the period from July, 2013 through June, 2014. Methods Results: The average age of patients was 36.5 + 10.5 years, which is the productive age group. Out of a total of 87,278 labour patients 83160 (95.28%) were male and 4118 (4.72%) were female. Among the patients 22046 (25.26%) were recorded with infectious diseases and 65232 (74.74%) were recorded as non-infectious diseases. Among infectious diseases, the most frequent conditions with a ranking in the descending order was gastro-intestinal disorders with a number of 10719 (48.62%), tuberculosis & chest infection were 7497 (34.01%) followed by 3699 (16.78%) suffering with skin diseases, while 123 (0.56%) were of hepatitis-C virus (HCV) and the least with hepatitis-B i.e. 08 (0.04%). Among non-infectious diseases the most common patients reported were 16902 (25.94%) with cardiovascular diseases followed by 10306 (15.80%) of orthopedics, 7439 (11.40%) of urology, 5422 (8.31%) of diabetes and 5047 (7.74%) of various eye diseases. Conclusion: The number of absenteeism due to tuberculosis & pulmonary disorders were statistically higher than number of absenteeism due to other diseases (P <0.001). This magnitude of problem would double the burden on exchequer of the organization concerned with the quality of healthcare services at all levels and improvement in it. The health status of labour workforce affects the economic productivity of the nation's wealth, therefore, comprehensive health & labour policy is needed to address the health issues of the labour workforce which is the need of the hour, so as to achieve the maximum outcome in a decent work environment.