Abstract
Background: Cement is one of the most important building materials of the world. More than 250 000 people work in concrete manufacturing. Cement factory workers are exposed to dust during various manufacturing and production process, such as quarrying and handling of raw materials.
 Methods: This cross sectional study aims at determining the prevalence of respiratory morbidity and ventilatory function impairment among the cement factory employees and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
 Results: The mean age was 33.8±11.4 and most of them belonged to 21-30 age groups. The major respiratory symptoms were shortness of breath (18%), coughing out phlegm (22%), coughing that wakes up in the morning (14%) and wheezing (6%).Though study had its focus on respiratory morbidity, a significant proportion of the workers had other chronic non communicable diseases including diabetes (37%), blood pressure (10%) and cardio-vascular diseases/symptoms (26.6%). Conclusion: Though everyone was aware about the PPE some lacked the use of it due to discomfort leading to lung function impairment. The percentage predicted lung volumes and the respiratory symptoms helped to create awareness about the use of PPE and using proper ventilation systems, to protect the workers from developing chronic respiratory diseases in future.
 Keywords: Cement factory workers, respiration, morbidity
Highlights
Chronic exposure to Portland cement dust has been reported to lead to a greater prevalence of acute and chronic respiratory symptoms and a reduction of ventilatory capacity
The seriousness of pulmonary function impairment and respiratory disease has not been consistently associated with the degree of exposure [1]
The results are discussed into four phases including socio-demographic details of the employees, prevalence of respiratory problems, percentage predicted lung function and awareness of the use of protective equipments (PPEs)
Summary
Chronic exposure to Portland cement dust has been reported to lead to a greater prevalence of acute and chronic respiratory symptoms and a reduction of ventilatory capacity. The seriousness of pulmonary function impairment and respiratory disease has not been consistently associated with the degree of exposure [1]. The main cause for these problems is the exposure to dust, while other causes include high ambient temperature and radiant heat. Frequent exposure to dust may lead to ventilator function impairment and sometimes may lead to cancer which results in death. Several studies have suggested associations between cement dust exposure, chronic impairment of lung function and respiratory symptoms [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The lung function of the cement workers decreased with the duration of employment [6]
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