V. Mhalshekar¹, R. Kunkoliencar², S. Mhalshekar³, J. Cacodcar⁴

¹Senior Manager - Medical & Safety Health Environment Department, Goa Shipyard Limited, Government of India

²PG Student - Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Goa Medical College and Hospital, Goa, India

³Managing Director - Siddhivinayak Occupational Health Services, India

⁴Professor and Head - Department of Preventive  and Social Medicine, Goa Medical College & Hospital, India

Aims:

Pesticide industries are common all over the world and involve large number of employees for manufacturing, packing and transport of pesticides.

Considering the importance of the subject and lack of published evidence, study was done with an aim of assessing selected morbidities among pesticide industry unit in Goa and to suggest suitable recommendations to reduce morbidities and enhance productivity of workers.

Methods:

Our retrospective record based cross sectional study was conducted over a period of one month in 2022. The periodic medical examination data included socio demographic details of workers, anthropometry and blood investigations like HbA1c, hemoglobin, lipid profile, liver and renal function tests, urine tests, audiometry and ECG.

The data was analyzed using SPSS version 22. Chi square test was used to assess association between qualitative variables.

Results:

Among the 500 pesticide industry workers, it was observed that

23.6% had obesity with BMI>30, 22.8% had hemoglobin less than 11 gm%

34.2% had diabetes mellitus with HbA1C>6.5, 19.8% had abnormal liver function tests and 16.2% had abnormal renal function tests.

38.4% had abnormal lipid profile levels, 9.8% had abnormal urine examination tests

2.6% had abnormal ECG findings and 3.4% had abnormal audiometry findings.

Conclusions:

Study showed significant prevalence of lifestyle diseases among participants. High levels of abnormal liver and renal function tests were observed along with low hemoglobin levels in participants.

The study highlights need for risk assessment and periodic medical surveillance of industry workers for detection and early management of health problems along with healthy lifestyle modifications.

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