Bagasse dust related morbidities and its determinants among sugarcane factory workers: A cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Introduction: India’s sugarcane factories are growing by creating job opportunities for thousands of workers with varying educational, professional and socioeconomic backgrounds. These factories are a source of several hazards that severely harm the workers’ health. Objectives: To find prevalence of morbidities due to bagasse dust exposure among sugarcane factory workers and various factors associated with them. Material and methods: Cross sectional study was conducted in randomly selected Government sugarcane factory of District Saharanpur, among 343 factory workers for a period of one year. Pretested semi structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Collected data was analysed using appropriate statistical tests. Result: Overall prevalence of bagasse dust related morbidities was 29.2%. Maximum workers suffered from chronic cough (21.6%), chronic cough with breathlessness (2.3%), and chronic cough with phlegm (1.7%), chronic phlegm (1.5%), breathlessness (1.2%), wheeze (0.9%). These morbidities were significantly higher among those belonging to socioeconomic class III (37.4%)., working in processing section (68.4%) and those working for > 8 hours/day (38.7%). Conclusion: Such occupational hazards have deleterious effect on the individual health and safety, as well as on organizational effectiveness and these are preventable to a larger extent. Regular training should be conducted to educate workers to adopt proper safety measures while working.