Occupational health hazards in small scale steel manufacturing industries: a case study

A qualitative and quantitative study has been performed to investigate the concentration and impact of occupational health hazards (environmental and physical) on worker’s health employed in small scale steel manufacturing industries (SSSMI’s) of Ludhiana city in India. The study is performed on 80 workers of four SSSMI’s and 40 workers as control group. The environmental conditions reveal 96.8% and 34% higher values of suspended particulate matter and ambient air temperature respectively than the requisite standard levels. The physical health check-up disclosed that workers suffered from obstructive breathing (36.25%), prolonged cough (21.25%), dermatitis (30%) and eye infections (32.50%) which are significantly higher than control group at 95% confidence level under chi-squared test. The spirometric results indicated significant decline of FEV1/FVC (21.80%) in exposed workers than controls at 95% confidence level under paired student t-test. There was very limited use (34%) of personal protective equipments by the workers.